No. 8 Maryland faced No.6 Iowa Hawkeyes in the Big Ten match-up Thursday at 8:30 p.m., losing 82-96. The Hawkeyes maintained its six-game win streak, breaking the Terps’ five straight win streak.
Frese yelled, “you have four” to Shyanne Sellers with six minutes and 20 seconds left in the game. The Terps were down but did not give up despite an offensive masterpiece by Iowa with 62% in field goal shooting and a high 27 assists to the Terp’s 13.
In response Sellers drove down the line making a field goal within the paint while simultaneously getting a personal foul called on Caitlin Clark, awarding Sellers with a free throw.
Clark put on a show with a triple team high of 42 points, seven rebounds and eight assists.
The Terps could not shut down Clark’s lethal threes and overall drive to the basket. Clark finished with the fourth 40-point game of her career.
“I think that the difference for her this year is she’s just a lot stronger. She’s a lot more durable. The time that she’s spent in the weight room this season,” Coach Brenda Frese said. “She’s a once-in-a-lifetime type of player you know, a pleasure to watch play unless you’re scouting her and going against her so she can do so many things well.”
When these two teams last met, almost a year ago (Feb 15, 22) Maryland had the upper hand with an 81-69 win. Coming to the Carver-Hawkeye Arena, the Terps had an overall record of 18-4 and a conference record of 9-2.
Hawkeyes up 13-8, Clark with nine points on the board with four minutes left in the first quarter.
Coming off a timeout the Hawkeyes did not bat an eye and made three shots within a minute before Frese called for another time-out. Iowa maintained a 10-point lead throughout the first quarter as Maryland ended the first quarter 18-29. Clark delivered and came to play with 11 pts and 5-6 field goals.
“A really rough uncharacteristic start in the first quarter which I thought obviously impacted the results of the game and I think our start going one for nine and in that first quarter is really unlike us. The foul within 40 seconds to Diamond really impacted our team and they came out and were really aggressive,” Frese said.” Obviously, they were on fire in the first half which was difficult for us in every regard as you saw us trying to switch different things defensively and trying to get into some kind of rhythm. Transition, they crushed us in every area there.”
Maryland was unable to contain Clark and Monika Czinano in the second quarter. Halftime left Maryland fans stumped, but Iowa was ready to see its team continue its streak.
“When you play intimidated by what it looks like, we love the crowd, we allowed a lot of different emotions in the game, take us out of how we want to play,” Frese said. “And so I think that was the most disappointing and so we talked about a lot of things like that, and then getting back to our trust with our transition defense, with our press being aggressive… proud of the response in the second half defensively.”
Despite Maryland relinquishing the first half to the Hawkeyes, Abby Meyers and Diamond Miller did not give up – each respectfully making eight and six field goals within the third quarter.
Shyanne Sellers shined in the 14-point difference game. Sellers represented the Terps, diving for the ball and sliding across the court. Her determination and intensity showed with 26 points, six rebounds, three assists.
After a rough start by the Terps, the third quarter proved how much they wanted to win.
Outscored Iowa 22-18 with Maryland’s usual tenacious on-court behavior.
The Terps’ lack of cohesion was proven against the experienced tight-knit Hawkeyes. Iowa’s 30 rebounds and 26 assists came down to its continuous boxing out, communication and hustle to get back on defense.
“I think we could have been in her [Clark] space a little bit more. I mean, obviously, you’re trying to guard her and she draws a lot of attention,” Sellers said. “So there was a lot of miscommunication on defense, so you gotta stay attached to her because she’s capable of going for 40 just like she did.”
Iowa’s team chemistry and experience shined on its home court. Clark and Czinano worked well together and provided aid on both ends of the court.
Czinano left her home court four points away from a career-high with 28 points and six rebounds.
In the fourth quarter, 68-81, Maryland challenged the foul call on Sellers. After a closer look by an official review, the Clark free-throw got taken out, but Stuelke made 1-2 at the charity stripe.
Maryland’s team highs were represented with 27 points by Miller and a double high of nine rebounds and five assists by Faith Masonius. Miller picked up fouls three and four in the third quarter making her go to the bench, leaving the rest of the team to fight just as hard.
“Diamond’s a leader so we kind of just have to pick up our energy when she goes off the floor. So we kind of tried to do and you saw that in the second half,” Sellers said. “We played a lot better but ultimately dug ourselves too deep of a hole.”
Elisa Pinzan scored the 1,000th point of her career on a layup in the third quarter. Masonius ended with an all-around assist with six points, nine rebounds, five assists and four steals.
“That’s the beauty of it. We’re not going to have long to feel sorry for ourselves. Ohio State coming in and four of our last seven starting tonight are two with Iowa and two with Ohio State. So just being able to get in these games so it prepares us for the Big 10 tournament as well as postseason play,” Frese said. “So as long as we can take these lessons and this team has always been super resilient with watching film and learning. I know they’ll be ready to play on Sunday.”
Maryland is tied with No. 10 Ohio State for third in the Big Ten and the teams will face each other on Sunday at 4 p.m.
