No. 9 Maryland women’s basketball took down Princeton, 84-68, on Sunday.
The Terps looked different than they had previously and played a competitive 40-minute contest with the Tigers.
Here are three takeaways from Maryland’s win.
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Hot start cooled off
Maryland played one of, if not its best, quarter of the season in the first frame on Sunday. The Terps outscored Princeton by 16 straight out of the gate, forcing turnovers and getting easy buckets.
That said, their hot start cooled off significantly in the second quarter and despite a commanding win against a fringe top-25 team — according to head coach Brenda Frese — the Terps failed to replicate their firing start.
“This is going to be impactful for us, when you talk about a future and why we play games like this within our scheduling. Princeton is a really, really good team,” Frese said. “Those players have been together for three and four years with all their experience.”
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The Terps run set the tone, but the Tigers flipped the script in the second. Maryland failed to break the press and turned the ball over eight times in the second quarter, and 16 times on the night. Princeton finished the first half on a 12-0 run, finishing the second frame with 7-of-15 shooting and 3-of-6 from deep.
“Tale of two different quarters in the first half,” Frese said. “You saw that at halftime, we talked about not buying into the fatigue and the press that was giving us problems.”
The Terps recovered in the third, but simply couldn’t put the Tigers away until the final buzzer sounded. Princeton hovered around 12 points and a quick run could’ve completely made Maryland uncomfortable.
Princeton’s top-heavy scoring came in the second half. Madison St.Rose scored 12 and Olivia Hutcherson had 11 in the second half.
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Trimmed bench
Maryland shrunk its bench against Princeton, only playing nine players. But among those nine players, only six had significant impacts on the game.
Senior forward Mir McLean played just one minute on Sunday. Kyndal Walker and Marya Boiko also saw the floor but had relatively little impact and didn’t score.
Maryland’s 84 points came exclusively from its five starters and Kaylene Smikle, who earns starter minutes.
After Lea Bartelme suffered a season-ending ACL injury on Thursday, Addi Mack took her place in the starting lineup.
“Clearly, some of our players are working hard behind the scenes, but they’ve got room to grow, and that’s the exciting thing.” Frese said. “You kind of go with what you know, and with the experience that you’re able to have.”
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Frese mentioned fatigue as a reason for Maryland’s difficult second quarter. The Terps were playing their fifth game in 13 days. Maryland’s starters logged more minutes than it had all season.
“It’s definitely matchups, this team’s a really disciplined team, you know, like these guys understand when you come in the game and you know, they’re going to shop fake and step up and under and you foul like you have to be ready to play,” Frese said.
A mixed bag on defense
Maryland’s defense started really strong, forcing turnovers at will and turning them into points.
Maryland’s press worked well early, getting into passing lanes and made Princeton uncomfortable.
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“My philosophy with defense is that it is really all hard,” Oluchi Okananwa said. “There’s techniques to it, but it’s really your willingness to defend.”
But Maryland’s stifling defense went away and Princeton took advantage. The Tigers scored the second-most points by any of Maryland’s opponents —- Towson scored 70 on Thursday. But Sunday was a competitive game for 40 minutes, which simply wasn’t the case on Thursday.
Princeton shot poorly in the first quarter and shot better throughout the three other frames. Maryland’s defense didn’t contest as well as it did early on.
Maryland’s defense played well, but it didn’t keep its same intensity it had early on. The defensive force Maryland has shown to have tailed off and allowed Princeton to get as close as within three points in the second half.
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The Terps couldn’t fully contain Princeton’s best when it exclusively played its best available lineups on Sunday.
“That intensity that we brought, in terms of [defense], is really what helped us in this game,” Okananwa said. “Even Coach sometimes, with our press that we do, she has to tell them to relax a little bit. So that goes to show you how serious we take it, and how it’s such a great tool for us to really get us going.”
