The Terps handled the Mastodons with ease.
Purdue Fort Wayne (IPFW) being on Maryland women’s basketball’s schedule meant a reunion for the Sellers family. Maryland sophomore guard Shyanne Sellers and her sister Shayla, a senior guard for IPFW, battled on the court for the first time in their college careers. The sisters played together at Aurora High School in Aurora, Ohio.
Shyanne Sellers told reporters Tuesday she had over 20 complimentary tickets to distribute and that there has been “good family banter” happening over the last week leading up to the game, where No. 15 Maryland women’s basketball dominated the mid-major program, 88-51, in an early-morning Wednesday matchup in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Shyanne Sellers guarded her sister during the game and said if that did happen there would be some taunts involved.
“If she was far out I would say ‘Shoot it, shoot it. You won’t shoot it, you won’t make it,’” Sellers said the day prior to the game.
Shyanne got the better of her sister, leading the Terps with a team-high 18 points on the road while also recording six boards, three assists and two blocks. Shayla finished with six points on 2-of-8 shooting and grabbed seven rebounds.
There was some of that banter in the game when Shyanne got a blocking foul called on her and Shyanne said her sister called her “a flopper.”
IPFW made Maryland miss its shots early in the game and the Mastodons kept it close until senior Diamond Miller, graduate student Abby Meyers and company grew the lead to double digits thanks to a 10-0 run in the second quarter.
It was a clean first half of basketball for the Terps, with scoring contributions from six of the eight players that saw the floor in the first 20 minutes. Maryland shot 62.5% from 3-point range and 42.9% from the field.
Senior guard Brinae Alexander hit a 3-pointer four minutes into the second half, pushing Maryland’s lead to 23. She also assisted a smooth one-touch pass to Meyers for a layup in the second quarter. Alexander grew the lead to 36 after draining a 3-pointer as time expired in the third period.
The Terps didn’t let the Mastodons back into the game from there and cruised to a 37-point win, using the fourth quarter as an opportunity to get some fresh faces in the game.
Something head coach Brenda Frese was happy about, and something she’s emphasized all season was assist-to-turnover ratio. Today, that was 2:1 as Maryland had 20 assists to 10 turnovers.
“I love the 2:1 assist-to-turnover ratio; (it’s) an area where we’re really trying to be intentional just making the right play and the right read,” Frese said. “When you make those plays that’s why you see a game where everyone scores and four players (finish) in double-figures and a really hard, difficult matchup for people to defend against us when we’re sharing the basketball.”
Three things to know
1. Bromenschenkel led the way for IPFW. Amellia Bromenschenkel identified herself as the main offensive weapon for the Mastodons early in the game. The junior guard came in averaging a career-high 13.2 points per game after not averaging over 10 in each of her first two seasons. She has started all 12 games for IPFW this season and finished with a double-double. Her second half started by draining a 3-pointer from the right wing that was a part of a small 5-0 run. She kept her team alive with her offensive prowess despite IPFW trailing by double digits for the majority of the game.
“She was able to expose us from a lot of different areas but I also look at the stats that took her 21 shots to get those 25 points,” Frese said. “She was a huge addition, obviously, for them and had a huge impact and was a difficult matchup for us.”
2. Transition dominance. Maryland outscored IPFW in transition 27-2, something Frese and Miller was pleased about. The Terps had 12 steals Wednesday. The Terps have made it an emphasis to force turnovers and convert those to transition points.
“We like to play a fast-paced game and get down in transition,” Miller, who finished the game with 17 points on 6-16 shooting, said. “I think we just followed our game plan and did what we had to do on the offensive side.”
3. Maryland defense. The Terps’ defense gave the Mastodons problems all game. Maryland had forced 19 turnovers and converted them into 26 points. The Terps used their full-court press and corner trapping throughout the entire contest to help limit IPFW’s offense.