Maryland women’s basketball couldn’t handle South Carolina’s physicality in Elite Eight loss

On Nov. 11, Maryland women’s basketball went into halftime against South Carolina holding its heads high, only down 32-26 to the No. 1 team in America without future All-American Diamond Miller thanks to an unbelievable 16-point first half performance from senior guard Abby Meyers.

Fast forward four months later, and the Terps once again headed into half down a manageable margin to the Gamecocks, down 38-30 because of a 14-point first half performance from Meyers. 

This time, the Terps were missing Miller and co-star Shyanne Sellers as a result of foul trouble; the duo combined for only 12 minutes in the half and two minutes in the second quarter. South Carolina outscored the Terps 23-9 in the quarter as a result. 

The Nov. 11 meeting did not go to plan for the Terps in the third quarter, who got run over by a dominant performance from South Carolina in the paint and on the boards. The Gamecocks used a 12-rebound and a 14-point in the paint advantage to cruise in the final 20 minutes.

The Elite Eight matchup felt eerily similar for the Terps, who had trouble handling the size and physicality of the Gamecocks around the hoop and allowed South Carolina to once again pull away in the second half. 

Once again, the refs had a tight whistle, calling seemingly every bit of contact between the two sides. That benefited a deeper, more physical South Carolina team.

Both Sellers and senior guard/forward Brinae Alexander fouled out as a result of this the first time around, and senior forward Faith Masonius had four fouls of her own.

It was only worse for Maryland in the second go around, as five Terps entered halftime with two fouls, including four starters.

Meyers’ Maryland career ended early in the fourth quarter when she picked up a questionable fifth foul of the game. Masonius fouled out with just over four minutes to go. Sellers and Miller each finished with four fouls as well, further adding to the damage. 

Frustrations from the foul trouble even boiled over after the game as Miller voiced her opinions on the refereeing.

“All the fouls were going one way,” Miller said. “Clearly we needed to be more physical I guess on [offense] because every time they hit us nothing was called.” 

Meyers’ foul trouble also prevented her from having much of any impact in the second half, during which she recorded only seven minutes. Her only statistic in the half outside of the three fouls she picked up was a singular rebound.

“You felt like you were coaching with one arm behind your back,” coach Brenda Frese said. “You were just kind of juggling who you have on the bench…it kind of felt like that all game.” 

The Terps played much differently on the defensive end in the first half than in the first meeting, but it only led to the same result. Maryland switched between zone and man like it did in the first meeting, but gave much less focus to South Carolina’s bigs. 

Maryland seemed to trust its interior defense a bit more, allowing much fewer shots on the perimeter than it did the first time. That said, South Carolina’s size proved to be too much as the game went on, forcing the Terps to take a more similar approach to the former game as the second half progressed.

Senior forward Aliyah Boston took advantage during the time the Terps allowed her more touches, racking up 22 points, 10 rebounds and five assists. Co-star senior guard Zia Cooke also allowed Boston to have less of the defense’s focus, having a dominant 18 points and 8 rebounds of her own despite her 5-foot-9 height.

Worst of all for Maryland was likely the rebounding, where the undersized Terps got dominated in both contests. The Gamecocks out-rebounded Maryland by over 20 boards in both meetings, and over half of their rebounds came on the offensive glass in the rematch.

“A lot of those fouls were costly off O-boards or put backs,” Frese said. “They have tremendous size that really impacted us and I thought they took advantage.” 

The loss wrapped up the season in a similar way to how it started, with the Terps falling to the best team in the nation, South Carolina. Nonetheless, it also wrapped up an incredibly successful turnaround for Frese, who led Maryland to a better finish than last season despite losing 85 percent of its 2022 production in the offseason. 

“Nobody expected this team to be anywhere near an Elite Eight,” Frese said, “some questioned whether they were even going to make the tournament. Because these guys believed and stayed the course you were able to see some pretty magical things.”