Maryland women’s basketball rallies past George Mason, 86-77, behind Shyanne Sellers’ career day
COLLEGE PARK — If Maryland women’s basketball’s first five games of the season were the turbulence, the past four have been the smooth ascent.
The Terps opened 2023 with three losses in their first five games, all to ranked opponents, by historically wide margins. That stretch sent Maryland tumbling out of the Associated Press Top 25 for the first time since 2010, ending what was the second-longest active streak in women’s college basketball.
But in the weeks since, coach Brenda Frese has steadied her squad. The Terps have won four consecutive contests, the latest an 86-77 victory over George Mason on Sunday in Maryland’s last game before opening Big Ten play. The Patriots entered the battle unbeaten, but it’s the Terps who are now rolling into their conference slate.
“Our players now are resilient,” Frese said. “They’ve been on the road against top-10 programs. They’ve been behind and had to come back in games like today. Our hand continues to keep being dealt in different ways.”
Maryland entered halftime down 10 with a sluggish offense that resembled the one from the season’s opening weeks. The Terps finished the first half with 12 turnovers and made just 37.9% of their field goals while George Mason used a barrage of 3-pointers to lead at the break.
The third quarter was all Maryland. It opened the frame with a Brinae Alexander 3-pointer and closed it with a Shyanne Sellers difficult layup as the final buzzer sounded, punctuating a frame that started with the Terps down double digits and ended with them ahead by four.
Veterans such as Alexander and Sellers have anchored Maryland’s four-game winning streak. Alexander’s been the Terps’ top threat from deep — her 26 3-pointers on the season lead the team.
“We’ve gotta keep Brinae on the floor,” Frese said. “She spaces the floor for us. Not everyone’s a 3-point shooter for us. Every team is going to be built differently.”
Sellers, a preseason All-Big Ten selection, has transitioned swiftly into the starting point guard role in her junior season. Both her 28 points and 13 rebounds Sunday are a new career high. Nineteen of her points came in the second half, and the double-double is her first this season and fourth of her career.
“I’m starting to be able to decipher when to be aggressive and when to start kicking the ball out,” she said. “I feel like that’s beneficial for us.”
Together, the pair has guided Maryland out of its early-season funk. The Terps entered Sunday off two of their best offensive showings in recent years: a 114-44 win over Niagara and a 92-point effort against Massachusetts.
Those wins came on the heels of losses of similar margins. Maryland fell by 38 points to then-No. 6 South Carolina, 32 to then-No. 8 UConn and 20 to then-No. 24 Washington State to start one of its most difficult nonconference slates in Frese’s tenure with a losing record.
Overshadowed by the Terps’ winning streak is a growing list of key injuries. Guard Lavender Briggs has missed Maryland’s past two games with a lower-body injury — Frese hopes to have her back later this month. Reserve forward Emma Chardon, who missed all of last season with a torn meniscus, will miss the remainder of the season after she tore her ACL Wednesday. Bri McDaniel, who replaced Briggs in the starting lineup, provided Maryland a spark on offense and defense in her expanded role. But in the final minutes of the third quarter Sunday, she also exited with an injury and didn’t return.
McDaniel’s energy was integral in helping the Terps overcome their difficult start to 2023. She entered Sunday as the team’s third-leading scorer and was growing more comfortable as a starter, Frese said.
“You have no Emma anymore, no Lav for the next couple weeks, Bri goes down. Just have to find different ways,” the coach said.
That came in the form of Faith Masonius, Maryland’s most experienced bench player who put her team ahead for good late Sunday. Her layup with two minutes to go in the third quarter gave the Terps their first lead since the opening minutes and highlighted a quarter in which Maryland outscored George Mason, 26-12.
“We still have to get into the flow of things,” Masonius said. “For me, I kind of had a slow start. I’m trying to just have the mindset of ’leave everything out there.'”
Wins have been uncharacteristically difficult to capture for Maryland through the opening weeks of the 2023 season, but Frese feels that adversity has prepared the Terps for conference play.
Maryland’s season was on the verge of spiraling just a couple weeks ago. Even after a slew of injuries to key contributors and a few blowout losses, Frese has Maryland entering its conference slate as one of its hottest squads.
“I would’ve changed the schedule a bit in terms of being too top-heavy too early, but we can’t fix that,” Frese said. “Our hand continues to keep being dealt in different ways … which should help us as we get into conference play.”
Big Ten opener
Northwestern at Maryland
Sunday, 1 p.m.
Stream: BTN+