The one fault Maryland women?s basketball coach Brenda Frese has with her top-ranked Terps through 10 games is their inability to play smart basketball for 40 minutes.
The problem surfaced again Monday night at Comcast Center, when Maryland committed 10 first-half turnovers and trailed, 26-25, against Siena with 7:28 left in the first half.
But the Terps? superior talent took over, and they went on a 14-0 run late in the first half before outscoring the opposition, 48-20, over the final 20 minutes in a 93-54 victory. For the game, Maryland shot nearly 67 percent from the field while committing just one turnover in the second half.
“I didn?t like how we were evaluating possessions and being loose with the ball,” Frese said. “We had too many breakdowns on the defensive ends. Our defense gave up too many dribble-drives from the perimeter.”
Frese said Maryland?s second-half performance against Siena is how she expects her team to play as it prepares for a three-game road trip over the next 15 days, including tonight at Northern Iowa.
“We were much more focused and ready to play,” Frese said of the second half. “I was pleased with the way we shot the ball and really broke the game wide open, but we need to put together two good halves more consistently.”
Maryland (10-0) has now won 16 straight dating back to last season?s NCAA tournament and has the longest winning streak in the nation.
“You could see it in their faces. Theywere getting more and more excited with every made shot,” Terps forward Marissa Coleman said of Siena. “Last year, we snuck up on a lot of people. This year, that has not happened. We are the national champions, and we know to expect every team?s best performance.”
MARYLAND NOTES
» Maryland forward Marissa Coleman continued her stellar play against Siena on Monday with her third double-double of the season (19 points, 12 assists). She is the reigning ACC player of the week after posting the Terps? first-ever triple-double (15 points, 14 rebounds and a career-high 10 assists) in a 105-44 rout of UC-Santa Barbara Saturday.
» Tonight?s game at Northern Iowa represents a homecoming for Terps coach Brenda Frese, a native of Cedar Rapids.
