The Terps led by 17 at halftime.
Maryland women’s basketball dominated Nebraska from the first whistle to the last on Saturday afternoon en route to a 78-60 victory, its second straight after losing four in a row.
Here are three takeaways from the win.
Maryland dominated the pace
Maryland has been most successful this season when it can use its pace as a weapon against its opponents. The Terps like to speed up the other team defensively, forcing mistakes and pushing in transition.
The Terps executed all of this to perfection against Nebraska, consistently making the Huskers uncomfortable and owning the game’s tempo.
“I think our pace is our identity,” Rainey Welson, who scored a career-high 13 points, said. “We were really able to give Nebraska some struggles with our pressure… they would score and we’d run it right back down their throats, that was our mentality for this game.”
It started early when Oluchi Okananwa picked off two first quarter passes and took them immediately the other way for transition layups.
Her and Saylor Poffenbarger are both weapons for Maryland to ignite its transition game and the two combined for seven steals, despite playing just 18 and 28 minutes respectively. Nebraska ended up turning it over 22 times, leading to 23 Maryland points.
“We were really able to set the tone in the first quarter,” Frese said. ‘“I thought we were able to send great waves on the defensive end.”
As Welson alluded to, Maryland didn’t only push off misses and turnovers, after some Nebraska makes a Maryland player would leak out and sprint the length of the floor before Nebraska’s defense could get down there. Four times Maryland was able to answer a Nebraska basket within 10 seconds, killing any hope of momentum being generated.
Maryland shut down Nebraska’s best options
Nebraska’s offense principally runs through two players. The first is Britt Prince who is the team’s engine averaging 18 points a game, and the second is Amiah Hargrove the six-foot-two forward who has recently come on developing a connection with Prince, averaging 13 points a game.
Maryland limited the two to just 12 points combined and six shots each, completely smothering Nebraska’s offensive game plan.
The Terps stayed mostly in man-to-man defense. Okananwa guarded Prince when she was on the court, but aggressively blitzed her off-ball screens — making it difficult to find even small windows of space to shoot or get downhill.
In the paint, Maryland was anchored by Isi Ozzy-Momodu, who had maybe her best game of the season. The redshirt junior scored 16 points on the offensive end and provided high-level rim protection down low. Ozzy-Momodu made Hargrove’s life difficult and swatted Prince when she tried to get inside for a layup in the second quarter.
Breanna Williams also gave Maryland solid defensive minutes off the bench coming up with a block on Hargrove. The Terps were able to force Prince into four of Nebraska’s 22 turnovers, and continuously made it difficult to catch the ball.
Terps have flipped the script to start February
After Maryland went 3-6 in the month of January questions were starting to swirl among the team’s fanbase and the media of whether the team was truly among the Big Ten’s elite.
Maybe it had simply suffered too many injuries to important pieces to remain competitive. Those questions never reached the inside of Maryland’s locker room though, according to Frese and now the Terps are off to a 2-0 start to February.
“I think we had great perspective,” Frese said. “Those games [we lost in January] came down to possessions that we weren’t able to close out.”
Frese is correct. Only two of Maryland’s losses came by double digits and two came in overtime. She also said stretches like that are almost inevitable when you play in the Big Ten.
“When you get to February, I really feel like that’s where teams separate,” Frese said. “Are you going to fight or is it going to go in a different direction? This group has showed they’re going to continue to fight for one another.”
A big part of the turnaround has been Welson’s return to the lineup, after a four game absence that coincided with the losing streak. Welson brings Maryland enough of a boost off the bench and one more capable shooter that teams have to respect.
“They got to respect my shot, and that opens up driving lanes for [Okananwa] and Yarden [Garzon],” Welson said. “When you have me, [Poffenbarger], and [Garzon] out there it’s like pick your poison, who are you going to leave open?”
Category: General Sports
