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No. 12 Maryland keeps battling in spite of their injuries.
The Terps’ 62-55 Thursday night victory at USC wasn’t pretty by any stretch of the imagination, but good defense was at least somewhat a factor in holding the Trojans to 28.4 percent shooting from the field.
To be fully transparent, USC had a bad shooting night and isn’t a great shooting team to begin with; they entered Thursday 192nd in the nation at 40.2 percent. Jazzy Davidson, for example, is not an efficient 3-point shooter (27.7 percent) and missed a lot of open looks en route to going 1-for-11 Thursday night. But she is a very good scorer in other ways and Maryland holding her to zero points over the final three frames after she went off for 12 in the first is indicative of a phenomenal adjustment.
Aside from the D, another key aspect of the game was Maryland getting so much of their offense from free throws. Of their 62 points, 22 came from the line, with only four misses. With the exception of Izzy Ozzy-Momodu (48.6 percent), the Terps are a really good free throw-shooting team; they were 31st in the nation at 76.9 percent entering the contest. Ozzy-Momodu was 2-for-2, and her makes were über-crucial, as they gave Maryland a two-point lead with 3:11 remaining.
Kyndal Walker made the biggest contribution at the stripe, going 9-for-10. Addi Mack, the Terps’ best free throw shooter of those with high volume at 89.4 percent, was 4-for-5, including the last three points of the game, as USC failed to foul a lesser shooter while they were in desperation mode. Her one miss came on the front end of the trip that occurred at 20 seconds remaining and was after an admitted announcer’s jinx. Yarden Garzon was 2-for-2 to improve to 14-for-14 on the season.
After I wrote about Maryland’s future being in Garzon’s and Oluchi Okananwa’s hands, neither had a big game on Thursday, though Garzon (10 points, four assists) did make the biggest shot of the game: a catch-and-shoot 3 that broke a 54-54 tie with 2:38 remaining and proved to be the winning bucket.
Okananwa was 2-for-8 from the floor and 0-for-1 from 3 with just seven points and five turnovers, though she did collect seven rebounds. For the second game in a row, she got into foul trouble and that limited her to just 25 minutes. She’s not punishing opposing teams with her incredible speed and driving ability enough. She should keep scoring her easy layups until someone stops her and then that will open up opportunities for her to pass to cutting teammates for even more easy looks. (I still think she should also take the occasional 3 after establishing her driving game.)
I said Maryland would ride the hot hand when it’s not Okananwa or Garzon carrying the scoring load. Honestly, no one stepped up in a big way on Thursday, as the team shot 39.1 percent from the field and 4-for-16 from beyond the arc.
But a win is a win, and it was a big one over the team ranked 18th in the preseason and featuring the No. 1 recruit in the SportsCenter NEXT 100 (Davidson). Maryland did not want to be upset for the third time in five games. The Trojans were even more desperate, having lost three straight coming in. I gotta say I feel bad for USC because it’s a shame one side has to lose in all of these ultra-competitive Big Ten games. You knew this one would be close given how Maryland beat Minnesota by one in double overtime and Minnesota beat USC by one.
UCLA is a whole different beast
This most important thing about Thursday’s win is that Maryland now has momentum heading into their game against No. 3 UCLA on Sunday. They don’t have to worry about falling even further in the rankings or getting even more off track. No. Instead, they picked up a quality win and can now set their sights on an upset of their own.
The UCLA game is so huge for Maryland. Head coach Brenda Frese sometimes likes to schedule a really tough nonconference slate for her squad, although that was not the case this year. Two currently ranked teams Maryland has beaten in now-No. 7 Kentucky and now-No. 22 Princeton were No. 24 and unranked, respectively, in the preseason. The two currently ranked opponents they’ve lost to (now-No. 14 Ohio State and now-No. 25 Illinois) were also unranked at the start of the season. From Day 1, UCLA has been circled on Maryland’s schedule as their first elite test.
Though the top tier has shown vulnerability of late (with LSU losing to Kentucky and Vanderbilt and Texas then losing to LSU), it’s going to be extremely difficult to beat the Bruins. You’ve got 6-foot-7 Lauren Betts’ size to contend with, something the Terps may struggle with considering their tallest player is 6-foot-4. The five other core players on UCLA’s roster are all shooting above 33 percent from 3, with Kiki Rice being above 40 percent and Gianna Kneepkens and Gabriela Jaquez being above 45 percent. As a team, the Bruins are 15th in the nation at 37.5. Charlisse Leger-Walker (34.4) and Angela Dugalić (33.3) are shooting well enough to keep defenses honest and bring a lot to the table in other areas. It’s a formidable Big 6.
Maryland was 37th in the country with a 3-point clip of 35.6 entering Thursday (that fell to 35.1). I worry if they’ll be able to keep pace with Kneepkens and Jaquez, and how they will find offense if they’re not hitting their 3s. Better shot selection than what they put on display against USC is needed. Take good 3s, take good 2s. Eliminate the turnovers. (They had 13 in the first half against USC and 19 for the game.)
Without Kaylene Smikle and Bri McDaniel, they are a pretty big underdog. With Smikle, they beat Kentucky, who beat LSU, who beat Texas, who beat UCLA. Does that give them hope?
After the loss to Illinois, in which Maryland was 1-for-12 from 3, I called for Okananwa (0-for-0), Mack (0-for-0) and Rainey Welson (0-for-1) to take and make more 3s. Since then Okananwa has averaged 1-for-3.8 (26.7 percent) across four games, Mack has averaged 0.8-for-3.3 (23.1 percent) across four games and Welson has averaged 4-for-8 (50 percent) across the two games where she saw significant minutes.
As I mentioned, Welson was a 37.8-percent 3-point shooter with 254 makes in high school. She showed off her stroke with 4-for-8 efforts against Rutgers and Ohio State, and it is pure. I think the Terps have found another key contributor to add to the rotation, and I think she will eventually become more than a 3-point specialist. For now, that’s what she seems to be with just two 2-point attempts across the two outings. While Okananwa and Mack have mostly struggled from deep of late, Welson has gotten over her 2-for-17 start and is looking great.
Unfortunately, early on on Thursday, her head hit the floor underneath the weight of a USC player who fell on her, and she missed the rest of the contest. Hopefully she won’t miss too much time because the Terps need the No. 34 SportsCenter NEXT 100 recruit who is just starting to come into her own.
