The Terps advance after a difficult first test.
No. 4-seed Maryland women’s basketball survived a surprisingly difficult task in No. 13-seed Norfolk State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament Saturday.
The Terps took down the Spartans, 82-69, but Norfolk State never allowed Maryland to have a comfortable lead and made the first-round win very difficult.
Here are three takeaways from Saturday’s tight contest.
A tale of two halves
Maryland had a bad start on Saturday and was certainly in danger of an upset throughout the first half.
“You saw that in the first half, we had to kind of work through those jitters. I thought on both ends of the floor, stop turning the basketball over, which helped us in the second half,” head coach Brenda Frese said.
Norfolk State started the game on a 7-0 run, and despite Maryland punching back to end the first quarter, it was more of the same through the second quarter. Diamond Johnson had 16 points in the first half and posed a major threat.
“We were just able to play better defense. I think we were letting them just do what they wanted to do in the first half,” Kaylene Smikle said.
As for Maryland’s offense, things were quiet. Allie Kubek had a strong first half, but nobody else really stuck out for the Terps. This was especially true for Shyanne Sellers and Smikle — they scored a combined five first-half points.
Norfolk State had a two-point lead at halftime, then the script flipped. The Terps matched their first half total of 30 points in the third quarter alone, and the guards stepped up.
“Thought at halftime, we were able to kind of reset, take a deep breath, and, allow a lot of these kids, first time on the big stage, to kind of settle in,” Frese said. “ I thought our defense controlled things. We were able to get more shots.”
Smikle scored 18 points in the second half, while Sarah Te-Biasu caught fire, going 4-of-4 from deep for 16 second half points.
The Spartans, who played well throughout the entire match, were within four points in the fourth quarter. Despite having less talent on the roster, the Spartans gave the Terps a lot of issues.
“Your first-round games used to be more than likely would be easy wins, and that’s not the case like you’re talking about the parody of the game the transfer portal has changed things,” Frese said.
Second half free throw shooting
Maryland won by 13 on Saturday, and free throw shooting had a lot to do with that — especially in the second half. The Terps went 18-of-18 from the free throw line in the latter two periods.
The Terps went to the free throw line 25 times Saturday and only missed twice, both in the first half.
Free throw shooting proved to be crucial Saturday and should continue to be a major factor throughout the NCAA Tournament. In March, missing free throws can easily result in a loss.
“The free throws came first and the free throws got them in rhythm for the threes,” Norfolk State head coach Larry Vickers said. “We don’t foul 25 times. I’m not saying we didn’t foul, because it was a large moment and we were probably fouling. I got to watch the film, but you can’t send teams to the free throw line, especially as good shooters as they were.”
Maryland is only a 75.86% free throw shooting team, but it makes 16.97 free throws per game, the second-most in the nation.
Comparatively, Norfolk State was 8-of-11 (72.7%) from the free throw line. That was the major difference in the game — drawing fouls in the way the Terps did was one of the biggest reasons they won.
“I’m not saying that the officiating lost us that game,” Vickers said. “We fouled and we fouled and we fouled and we fouled and we fouled jump shooters and we fouled jump shooters some more.”
The starters stepped up
In contrast to Maryland’s men’s basketball, Maryland women’s basketball has been the team all season long that has had a deeper bench.
That was not the case in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, as Frese’s squad did its best impression of the “Crab Five” Saturday. In other words, the starting five was dominant as it has been all year.
Mir McLean was the only player off Maryland’s bench to score Saturday and the only bench player to see significant minutes in the second half.
Saylor Poffenbarger appeared to still be recovering from her ankle injury that she suffered on Feb. 20 and was not impactful in her nine minutes of play.
It was an interesting development, considering that Maryland’s early approach seemed to be to attack Norfolk State’s lack of size. In this instance, Kubek and Dalce were utilized as size advantages rather than Poffenbarger.
Kubek had one of her best games of the season, totaling 16 points and eight rebounds. She has been a big factor in NCAA Tournament games for Maryland — she had 29 points against Iowa State last season.
“The inside presence we had with Allie Kubek, I thought that was one of her better games. She gave us a great presence all night,” Frese said. “I thought she was really confident and really strong. You need to have that inside-outside presence within your team.”
Te-Biasu also stood out, shooting 6-of-8 from deep for a game-high 22 points.
“I was just confident. I saw at the half, I hit one, and I was like, ‘okay, shoot the next one,’” Te-Biasu said. “My teammates were like, ‘keep shooting, keep shooting, we need you to shoot.’”
Smikle also stepped up in the second half, finishing with 21 points. It was apparent that she had to settle in after embracing the early jitters from her first NCAA Tournament game.
Sellers had 12 points, although it seemed like she was still not fully healthy, and couldn’t move extremely well laterally.
“I thought Sarah [Te-Biasu] carried us for a while, then we were able to get [Smikle] and [Sellers] involved,” Frese said. “That’s what we have to have from our guard play if we’re going to continue to move through this tournament.