Diamond Miller stepped onto the Xfinity Heart ground Friday evening and went via her regular pregame routine, warming up with teammates, taking pictures across the horn, dribbling and crossing sideline to sideline and going via crew stretches. Followers saved an in depth watch on the senior guard’s each transfer, most with some type of the identical query: Would Maryland’s high risk, beforehand listed as a game-time choice, play towards No. 1 South Carolina after struggling a knee damage within the season opener?
Maryland
Maryland women can’t hang with top-ranked South Carolina
The scene was an in depth train in gamesmanship by Maryland Coach Brenda Frese. Shortly earlier than tip-off, the crew introduced Miller wouldn’t play. The Terrapins sorely missed her in an 81-56 loss to the reigning nationwide champions.
The Gamecocks continued to look each bit like the perfect crew within the nation, by no means trailing as they adopted the lead of Aliyah Boston, who swept the game’s most prestigious awards final spring and is broadly anticipated to be the primary participant chosen in April’s WNBA draft.
Boston, buoyed by a vocal contingent of Gamecocks followers in Faculty Park, scored six of South Carolina’s first 9 factors and by no means relented, ending with 16 factors, 13 rebounds, two assists and a block. She made seven of her eight pictures from the sphere.
The No. 17 Terrapins (1-1), although they by no means led, solely trailed by six at halftime after holding South Carolina (2-0) to 13 factors within the second quarter. However issues acquired away from them in a second half wherein Maryland was outscored 49-30.
Abby Meyers had a game-high 21 factors to tempo Maryland. She was the one Terrapin in double figures. Shyanne Sellers, who suffered a late ankle damage, had 9.
Zia Cooke scored 18 factors to steer South Carolina, Kamilla Cardoso added 13, and Laeticia Amihere completed with 10.
Issues get a bit simpler for Maryland on Sunday when it hosts Fordham.
Right here’s what else to learn about Maryland’s loss:
Extra assist wanted on offense
Meyers was a one-woman scoring crew early, however she didn’t get a lot assist from her teammates. The Terps shot simply 30.3 % from the sphere as a crew, and Meyers took 13 extra pictures than some other Terrapin.
South Carolina’s defensive changes performed a task in Maryland’s second-half struggles, particularly the best way the Gamecocks keyed on Meyers, who scored simply 5 factors within the second half.
“Basketball’s positively a streaky recreation,” Meyers stated. “Give credit score to South Carolina; their protection is wonderful. Their gamers are actually energetic. They’re lengthy. I positively dried up just a little bit. That’s a private factor I’ve set to work on. However credit score South Carolina. They performed nice protection in that second half.”
Frese anticipated her crew would have its palms full with South Carolina’s dimension. She wasn’t unsuitable. At one level, the Gamecocks had Cardoso (6-foot-7), Boston (6-5) and Amihere (6-4) on the ground collectively. The Gamecocks ran sure units with Cardoso on the elbow lobbing an entry move to Boston within the put up. Fourteen of South Carolina’s first 19 factors got here within the paint, and it outrebounded Maryland 55-32. The Gamecocks additionally had 11 blocked pictures.
“Very troublesome,” Frese stated. “However once more . . . this group didn’t flinch. They didn’t cling their heads. They didn’t really feel sorry for themselves. They simply went to the subsequent possession. And so long as we proceed to play like that . . . even within the fourth quarter, as huge of a spot as there was, we simply continued to maintain scrapping possession by possession and simply leaving all of it on the market.”
Issues acquired chippy within the third quarter when Maryland freshman Bri McDaniel turned vocal whereas organising for a full-court press. Quickly thereafter, McDaniel and South Carolina guard Kierra Fletcher needed to be separated by officers as each groups engaged in some back-and-forth throughout a small scrum.
McDaniel and Fletcher got technical fouls, and Cardoso was known as for an intentional foul. Maryland had crept inside single digits, however the extracurriculars appeared to energise the Gamecocks, who upped their aggression and shortly pushed their lead again to 17.
Boston nodded emphatically when requested whether or not the second gave the crew just a little extra juice.
“Yeah, I believe so,” Boston stated. “We have been simply saying that the power’s excessive for either side. The gang was feeding into it, however we simply wanted to grasp that we wanted to open up the sport. We simply figured it out.”
Stated Coach Daybreak Staley: “We simply centered just a little bit extra.”