The Terps trailed for less than two minutes.
With head coach Brenda Frese’s 600th win on the line, No. 16 Maryland women’s basketball — losers of four of its last five games — knew it had to get back on track.
After failing to do so Sunday, Sarah Te-Biasu and the Terps were on a mission Thursday. She scored 26 points en route to Maryland’s 79-61 win at Oregon.
“It makes it kind of the cherry on top, just to be able to do it with this group,” Frese said.
In their first West Coast game of the season, the Terps started strong, building a 10-point lead by the end of the first quarter. Emily Fisher was strong on both sides of the ball. She drained a step-back jumper with a defender in her face, and then drew an offensive foul on the other end.
Things got feisty between Oregon’s Sarah Rambus and Kaylene Smikle, though, as they both received technical fouls for bickering with each other.
Te-Biasu was on fire early. She hit her first seven shots from the field and finished the first half with a game-high 17 points.
“It’s just building, just believing yourself. [My] coaching staff, my teammates, they say, ‘We need you to be aggressive, we need to be confident.’ And that’s what I’m doing right now,” Te-Biasu said. “They were pushing me to be better every day and stay confident.
Oregon (16-7, 7-5 Big Ten) had no answer for Maryland (18-5, 8-4) offensively. While the teams had similar records, it was clear Maryland was far better, growing its lead to as large as 22 in the first half.
Oregon went on a small 5-0 run to end the half, cutting the deficit to 17. The Terps were held scoreless for the final 3:04 of the period.
Maryland came out of the break firing on all cylinders, forcing two Oregon timeouts as its lead grew to 31 points.
The Terps had a 3-point barrage, starting the half on a 12-0 run and connecting on three of their first four attempts from deep.
The third quarter ended with Maryland up by 23 points, but the fourth started with a 7-0 Oregon run. Frese appeared visibly frustrated, as the Terps didn’t score for nearly the first five minutes of the frame, forcing her to call two timeouts.
Smikle eventually ended the scoring drought with four consecutive points.
Turnovers down the stretch continued to haunt Maryland. Its habit of giving the ball away allowed Oregon to remain competitive.
The Terps scored in bunches and quick spurts Thursday — and it worked — but the commonality of these droughts were odd considering the lead they held.
Interestingly, Christina Dalce didn’t see much action in Eugene, Oregon. She only played nine minutes and scored all four of her points late.
Maryland had an unorthodox path to victory Thursday, yet found a way to dominate the Ducks all night.
“We’re in February. We have an experienced group. These games are really valuable to be locked in,” Frese said.
Three things to know
1. Big west coast win. Maryland traveled over 2,500 miles to face Oregon. The Terps did not seem to be effected by one of its longest road trips in program history, as picked up a much-needed road win.
“We know how precious road wins are, especially when you’re dealing with adversity,” Frese said. “Really far trip away from home. I thought we really came out strong.
2. All Terps, all night. Maryland was in complete control of Thursday’s game from the tip. There were certainly questions as to how Maryland would perform given the trip to the West Coast, but the Terps passed that test with flying colors. They trailed for less than two minutes.
3. Shyanne Sellers wasn’t productive. Despite Maryland having an overall positive night, Sellers had minimal impact on the game and did not score. She was 0 for 3 from the field with four assists, three rebounds, two steals and three turnovers.
“Trying to get her to 100%, she’s nowhere near that yet,” Frese said of Sellers. “Fortunately for us, other players are stepping up and no fault of her own.”