Because the so-called “Mother” of the Maryland girls’s basketball crew, senior Religion Masonius desires to make one factor clear.
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Perspective | Faith Masonius is not just a basketball player, she’s Maryland’s team mom
Apart from being the chauffeur, she’s the again seat conductor in Maryland’s defensive zone matchups.
She welcomes new Terps to the household, and teaches roommate and standout sophomore Shyanne Sellers tips on how to do her make-up.
She does the issues that’ll by no means sparkle on a stat sheet, and she or he’s the neglected purpose the Greenville 1 Area’s No. 2 seed might carry out higher on this NCAA event than it did a yr in the past.
“You don’t actually discover how a lot Religion brings till she’s gone, and you would inform that final yr,” Sellers stated about Masonius, who was misplaced for the 2021-22 season early final January with a serious knee damage. “Now she’s again on the courtroom and it’s superior to have her again. She actually does play with all she has and hasn’t missed a beat.”
When the Terrapins host No. 7 Arizona in Sunday’s second spherical, the eyes will naturally comply with senior guard Diamond Miller, the second-team all-American graced with pace and agility but in addition a ferocious aspect that opponents ought to by no means cross. In addition to Sellers, who has elevated her all-around recreation from her freshman yr to now. And even Meyers, the Princeton switch whose Ivy League recreation has blended in completely with Coach Brenda Frese’s system. However don’t neglect about Masonius.
The scars that she earned from the worst interval of her life, she covers with a brace. However that doesn’t hold her from shifting and speaking — speaking so a lot — on the defensive finish, barking out switches and calling for screens the best way a mother may nag her youngsters about selecting up their socks. She’ll be a coach sometime. For now, Masonius is happy with being Maryland’s 22-year-old matriarch.
“You may see how a lot we missed Religion final yr. She’s the glue participant, unsung hero, and simply is our grit, scrappiness. I beloved having the ability to see her provoke the beginning for us on the defensive finish,” Frese stated Friday following Maryland’s first-round, 93-61 win over Holy Cross.
In that recreation, Masonius collected three steals within the opening seven minutes and scored eight factors. Twice as many as Holy Cross’s crew complete for the primary quarter. Maryland went on to overwhelm its opponent into committing 24 turnovers, and opened a 36-point lead earlier than the sport mercifully ended.
“Religion set the tone,” Frese stated. “I really like the truth that she was proper there on the defensive finish with the three steals, and that’s how we need to play.”
A yr in the past throughout Maryland’s March run that ended within the Candy 16, Masonius watched from the sideline. Her season had been misplaced when she tore the ACL in her left leg — on simply the second day of 2022. Maryland was taking part in a convention recreation at Indiana, when Masonius stole a cross and, with out making contact with anybody, crumpled to the ground.
“It was positively onerous at occasions,” Masonius says, downplaying the surgical procedure and all that adopted.
Ellen Masonius has a special response. Greater than a yr later, she groans and tears fill her eyes when recalling her daughter’s damage. For about six seconds, Ellen wants a pause earlier than she will be able to speak about it. Then, her voice breaking, Ellen describes the quiet struggles.
Because the sixth child within the delivery order, Religion was raised to be impartial. By nature, nevertheless, she watched over others. She may need been two years youthful than her sister, Addie, however consistently reminded her to seize all her requirements earlier than heading out to basketball observe. In center faculty, she was the preteen drill sergeant operating practices earlier than it was time for Ellen, the crew’s coach, to show performs — which, in fact, Religion helped with as effectively.
Then as a highschool sophomore, when her trainer went into cardiac arrest, Religion jumped into disaster mode and took management of the scenario, yelling at one pupil to run to the nurse and instructing one other to get a trainer in a close-by classroom, Ellen recalled. (The trainer’s life was saved).
However in her personal second, Masonius wished to isolate. Simply attempt to get by and determine the subsequent path ahead with out burdening her tribe.
“She didn’t actually talk with us as a lot. I’d see Karen [Blair], [and she would say]: ‘Religion had tears right this moment,’” Ellen stated, remembering a dialog with the Maryland assistant coach.
Throughout her rehab, Masonius turned to TikTok and, as many different younger individuals do, started to chronicle her life, even posting make-up tutorials, and sharing the occasional peek into her feelings. However her Maryland teammates wouldn’t let Masonius, who had helped host recruits since her freshman yr and labored to carry the crew collectively, be alone. Chloe Bibby, a graduate pupil on the 2021-22 crew, would rub her leg and educate her rehab tips since she, too, had torn an ACL. Masonius’s roommate was additionally a continuing presence.
“Having them round actually helped so much. I imply, Shyanne introduced me a freakin’ wheelchair!” Masonius says, “and was wheeling me round!”
Throughout video games, Masonius sat behind the bench, the place she might take within the recreation from a special perspective. Listening to her coaches and observing her teammates on the ground solely fueled her need to run her personal crew sooner or later. Now again on the ground as a full-time participant, Masonius is utilizing what she discovered a yr in the past.
“Taking that have off the courtroom has given me that drive, ardour to need to be my greatest on the courtroom,” she says. “And being my greatest is speaking at my greatest and taking part in onerous and doing the little issues.”
Masonius won’t ever be on the high of the set, monitoring quick guards, however she strikes successfully and makes positive her teammates hear her voice, a small however essential component of basketball, when Maryland’s protection switches from one look to a different.
“Religion’s positively like our quarterback. On protection, she is at all times telling individuals the place to go. Typically an excessive amount of, the place she loses her man,” Sellers stated with a smile. “However she’s at all times attempting to assist everyone out on the defensive finish. Telling individuals when to change, at all times doing her half, attempting to field out. That’s actually her function.”
One other function? Turning Sellers into an unwitting co-star of her tutorials.
“I do make her do TikToks with me,” Masonius says of Sellers. “I’ve performed her make-up earlier than however she gained’t let me make movies of it … [Sellers] doesn’t like when individuals contact her eyes, so [when] I attempted to place eyelashes on and she or he was like: ‘Take them off of me!’”
Perhaps Sellers will permit Masonius to submit these clips afterward. The 2 ought to have extra time collectively. Due to covid and the redshirt that adopted her damage, Masonius has two extra years of eligibility remaining after this season. If she decides to play each years, she may need to take into consideration upgrading to a kind of minivans.
“Proper now they name her the mother. I’m like, what are they going to name her in two years,” Ellen joked. “She is perhaps a grandmother by that point.”