If Maryland?s women?s basketball team wants to win the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament this season, it will have to win three games in three days against three tough opponents.
To accomplish that goal, top-ranked Maryland has challenged itself with a tough schedule, including this weekend when it will play three games in three days as the host of the BTI Classic, a round-robin event that also includes No. 25 George Washington, Texas Christian and Arizona. Of the three teams, George Washington and TCU are coming off years in which they reached the second round of the NCAA tournament.
The classic represents the season-opener for TCU, while Arizona is currently 1-0. George Washington is off to a 2-0 start after defeating the University of Maryland-Baltimore County and Coppin State to open the year.
“This event is great non-conference preparation to get ready for the ACC tournament,” Maryland coach Brenda Frese said. “There are three great teams playing with us that should give us a challenge this early in the season.”
So far, the Terps (2-0) have not missed a beat. They have averaged 89.5 points while shooting better than 60 percent from the floor in wins at Middle Tennessee State and George Mason. Maryland junior forward Crystal Langhorne, who is averaging a team-high 15 points per game, is among five Terps scoring at least 10 points a contest.
Still, Langhorne said Maryland is not playing at the level it needs to if it wants to remain atop the national rankings throughout the year. She is primarily concerned about the team?s defense and ball-handling, where the Terps have as many assists and they do turnovers (39).
“We found out we need to get much better with our turnovers against Middle Tennessee,” Langhorne said “And even against George Mason, we had careless turnovers. We also need to play great defense because defense is going to win us games. Against Middle Tennessee, we went through stretches where we had problems getting stops.
“It?s really different this year because everyone is coming after us with their best game. I think we just need to pick up our intensity on defense and really focus on taking care of the ball.”
BTI CLASSIC NOTES
» Maryland will play TCU at approximately 7:30 p.m. Friday, followed by Arizona at 4:30 p.m. Saturday and George Washington at 3:30 p.m. Sunday.
» Maryland is facing TCU for the first time, while it takes on Arizona for the third time overall. The Terps defeated the Wildcats, 92-67, last season in College Park.
» Maryland leads the all-time series with George Washington, 2-1. However the two schools have not played one another since the Colonials defeated the Terps, 77-67, on Jan. 12, 1994.
