All season long, the Maryland women’s basketball team had a target on its back as the defending national champions. On Tuesday night, Mississippi hit the bull?s-eye.
The Terps are now looking toward next season after getting upset by the Rebels, 89-78, in the second round of the NCAA tournament in Hartford, Conn. With the loss, Maryland (28-6) matches the fastest exit for any defending champion, tying the mark set by Purdue in 2000 and Notre Dame in 2002.
Maryland coach Brenda Frese said she was proud of the Terps? second-half effort against the Rebels (23-10), who led by as many as 23 points before it was cut to seven. Still, the team is obviously disappointed in how a much-anticipated season ended.
“A gift that Ole Miss gives us tonight is the ability to get back in the weight room and into our conditioning and learn a tough lesson to take into next season, and that’s the biggest thing we can take out of it,” Frese said during Tuesday’s post-game press conference.
To Maryland?s advantage next season, the core of this team will return. Only seniors Shay Doron and Auriele Noirez graduate this spring.
Among those expected back next year are forward Crystal Langhorne and guards Marissa Coleman and Kristi Toliver. What Toliver’s role with the team will be next year remains to be seen. Frese replaced her in the starting lineup with Sa?de Wiley-Gatewood at the start of the NCAA tournament.
Both guards are expected to be back next season, but they will have to do a better job of handling the basketball than they did in the loss to Mississippi. Toliver scored 24 points but had 10 turnovers, while Wiley-Gatewood had no points and four turnovers against the Rebels. The Terps, who defeated Mississippi, 110-79, in November, finished the game with 29 turnovers overall.
“I think the difference was with our team, honestly,” Doron said in the post-game press conference. “It was a complete disregard for keeping the ball in our hands and getting shots. We knew that we had to get shots and we didn’t. We shot the ball better than anyone in the country, and we just couldn’t get looks, couldn’t get shots and kept turning the ball over. They got easy layups off that.”
MARYLAND NOTES
» Senior guard Shay Doron finished her career with 1,878 points, behind only Vicky Bullett’s 1,928 on Maryland’s all-time scoring list.
» Junior forward Crystal Langhorne finished the season with 508 points, giving her 1,713 for her career. With 549 points as a freshman and 654 last year, Langhorne became the first Terp to score at least 500 points in three different seasons.
» Sophomore guard Kristi Toliver had 161 assists this season, breaking the Terps? previous record of 158 set by Carla Holmes in 1988-89.
