No. 7 Maryland women’s basketball needed an extra boost to gain its 15th win of the season against Indiana after suffering its loss to Illinois on Thursday. What the Terps got was a second-half surge led by Oluchi Okananwa.
Her 34 points were a new career high, topping her prior career high of 28 points earlier this season against Wisconsin on Monday.
Two games later, back in College Park, Okananwa added six more points to that total, leading Maryland to an 82-67 victory over Indiana.
“From Oluchi’s end, just as hard as she played with the assignment that she had on Shay [Ciezki] defensively. Never took her foot off the gas defensively. And then to go and have another career high. She keeps doing that here in Maryland,” head coach Brenda Frese said.
Early on, Maryland was doing everything right — except putting the ball in the basket.
The Terps’ ability to be aggressive on the offensive glass, force turnovers and capitalize on Indiana’s mistakes gave Maryland the first-half lead. But it wasn’t quite enough, and they needed another surge to glide past Indiana.
Coming out of the half, the Terps stood tall and went on a quick 12-0 run. That run gave Maryland enough momentum and breathing room to earn its third Big Ten victory.
After shooting only 38.2% from the field in the first half, the Terps bounced back, shooting 58.6% in the second half.
Maryland suffered its first loss of the season at Illinois on Thursday and also shot below average from the field. But, it was able to coarse-correct in the second half against Indiana.
“In the Illinois game, we weren’t really there. But we had a team talk. We had to recover ourselves and collect ourselves together and just calm down,” Isimenme Ozzy-Momodu said. “But just having that reminder and being sisters every single time, that’s a really big thing.”
Ozzy-Momodu had 12 points and a season-high 15 rebounds, shooting 6-of-7 from the field. She was a strong force inside and the only other Terp besides Okananwa to score in double figures.
On the season, Maryland shoots 48% from the field. Against Illinois, they only shot 42%. And in the first half of this one, their poor shooting kept the Hoosiers around.
For Indiana, it was almost the exact opposite. The Hoosiers shot over 60 percent from the field and from behind the arc. But, they couldn’t withstand Maryland’s aggressiveness in going after the ball.
Coming into Sunday, Indiana guard Shay Ciezki led the Big Ten in scoring, averaging 26.6 points per game. She was Okananwa’s assignment and was held to 17 points on 5-of-9 shooting.
The Terps struggled against Illinois in protecting the ball and forcing turnovers. Maryland turned the ball over 18 times to an Illinois total of just 12. But this was not the case against Indiana.
The Hoosiers suffered 21 turnovers compared to Maryland’s 11. The Terps capitalized, with 25 of their points coming from Indiana turnovers.
“When we’re not turning the ball over, good things happen for us on the offensive end, but it really does start with our defense,” Frese said. “It has to be that we can get stops, and it isn’t predicated on us being able to score. And I thought we really tuned in a lot more on the defensive end, we made life difficult.”
Not only this, but Maryland’s ability to get offensive rebounds – especially in the first half – was a strong advocate in them winning this game. The Terps had 13 offensive rebounds, seven of which came from the first quarter alone.
The Hoosiers had four different players score double digits in the game, but it ultimately wouldn’t be enough to handle Maryland’s aggressiveness coming out of their first loss of the season three days ago.
