Brenda Frese was visiting former assistant Tina Langley’s dwelling when she noticed a journal that the College of Washington coach as soon as used as a team-building exercise. Two years later, Frese realized how vital one thing like that may very well be for her Maryland girls’s basketball group this season.
Maryland
A weekend retreat helped Brenda Frese’s new-look Terps grow together
All of these adjustments allowed Frese to usher in transfers Brinae Alexander (Vanderbilt), Abby Meyers (Princeton), Elisa Pinzan (South Florida) and Allie Kubek (Towson). (Lavender Briggs additionally transferred from Florida in January, however Kubek has been misplaced for this season with a torn ACL.) On high of that, three members of the four-player freshman class — four-star recruits Bri McDaniel, Gia Cooke (Bishop McNamara) and Mila Reynolds — had been ranked within the nation’s high 60 by ESPN.
Following all of that, Frese confronted a conundrum: How may she get all the new faces to bond as shortly as attainable? Her reply: a weekend retreat and a few severe journaling.
“We’ve achieved a retreat previously, nevertheless it’s been some time,” she mentioned. “It’s a very vital factor for us to construct belief. And we will’t construct belief till we all know your story. We all know plenty of them — components of their story — however we don’t know their complete story. We’ve actually put plenty of various things into this season that we haven’t had previously, and rightly so simply because there’s so many new names and gamers this 12 months.”
Assistant coach Kaitlynn Fratz discovered the situation — Luray Caverns in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley — and journals had been handed out two weeks forward of time. The task was for gamers to share their story by means of phrases, photos or no matter different artistic method they like.
Frese wants this group to get on the identical web page before later, and the gamers have to get to know each other first. Below Frese, Maryland gained a nationwide title in 2006, has made three Last 4 appearances, has taken six journeys to the Elite Eight, has appeared in each Related Press ballot because the begin of the 2010-11 season and hasn’t misplaced double-digit video games since 2009-10. After the Terps misplaced to top-seeded Stanford within the Candy 16 final season, the usual stays excessive.
Maryland expects to compete for Massive Ten titles yearly, however the media and the convention’s coaches picked the Terps to complete fourth this season. That voting absolutely was influenced by Maryland’s huge roster adjustments.
“We’ve got time, however we don’t have plenty of time,” Miller mentioned. “I feel the most important problem is simply realizing one another’s tendencies and stuff like that, simply because we had been all coming from completely different groups and completely different groups do various things and completely different gamers do various things. So studying folks is plenty of enjoyable, however typically it may be just a little difficult — like, what are we doing on offense proper now?”
So much rests on the shoulders of Miller, who was slowed by a knee harm final season after which had surgical procedure. She was voted all-Massive Ten every of the previous two seasons (first group in 2021, second group in 2022) after averaging 17.3 factors as a sophomore and 13.1 as a junior. She acknowledged being pissed off final season and mentioned she labored on her ballhandling and getting her confidence again.
The 6-foot-3 New Jersey native desires to get again to enjoying like a real guard. Final season, she felt she received misplaced within the offense at instances and would find yourself hanging out within the nook. With Owusu and Reese out of the image, she is the No. 1 possibility.
“Junior 12 months was very troublesome for me,” she mentioned. “… I’m not going to say I dealt with it the most effective, however I used to be in a position to push by means of that very troublesome time in my life.”
Reese (now at LSU) and Owusu (Virginia Tech) are two of the highest gamers within the nation, however the new-look Terps nonetheless have loads of accolades. Sellers is the reigning Massive Ten sixth participant of the 12 months and was an all-freshman choice. Briggs was second-team all-SEC in 2020-21; Meyers was an Related Press honorable-mention all-American final season; Alexander was an SEC all-freshman choice in 2018-19 who led Vanderbilt in scoring final season; and Pinzan was second-team all-AAC in 2020-21.
That provides as much as plenty of expertise and expertise, however the Terps nonetheless need to develop into a cohesive unit. There isn’t a ton of dimension on the roster, so Frese expects to play sooner. Masonius, a defensive stalwart coming off a torn ACL, mentioned she sees a possibility for the Terps to step up on that finish of the ground when the common season begins Nov. 7 at George Mason.
The various departures uncovered clashes throughout the program, however change is apparent already. That weekend retreat and the gamers’ journaling supplied step one.
“One factor I’ll say about all the brand new ladies who simply got here on this 12 months — the primary day we frolicked, we had been laughing, we had been playing around,” Masonius mentioned. “There was no awkward stage. Everyone got here in, and it was simply so pure as a result of everybody’s so goofy and humorous, and it’s enjoyable. It’s enjoyable.”