Shyanne Sellers dominated the first half for the shorthanded Terps. She kept it going in the third quarter.
Sellers spun around a defender before putting up a shot while off balance midway through the period. The guard got knocked down, drawing a foul as the ball sailed through the net. Sellers nailed the ensuing free throw giving Maryland a double-digit lead.
Sellers put the Terps on her back, setting a new career high with 29 points as she guided Maryland women’s basketball (9-3) to its seventh straight win. The Terps defeated James Madison (8-4), 78-55, in their non-conference finale.
“It starts with your best player and [she’s] one of the best players in the country,” coach Brenda Frese said. “Her week of practice led to her mentality and she set the tone from the tip.”
The Dukes entered the game as the fresher team. They played most recently on Sunday, while Maryland entered Wednesday’s matinee on an eight-day break.
The Terps also tweaked their lineup, moving Faith Masonius into the starting lineup for the first time in a month as Jakia Brown-Turner missed the game with an illness. Lavender Briggs and Hawa Doumbouya also missed the Terps’ final home game of 2023 with an illness.
“We just came in with the mindset that we don’t have a lot of people on the bench and just come into the game and start strong,” Bri McDaniel said.
“I kept saying in warm ups that it’s just us, just a group that was out there,” Sellers said.
Maryland’s lack of cohesion showed early, as James Madison opened the game on fire, taking a 9-0 lead as the Terps missed their first six field goal attempts. They finally got on the board nearly five minutes in as Emily Fisher laid in a layup off a Riley Nelson offensive rebound.
Fisher’s bucket jumpstarted an 8-0 Maryland run to climb the Terps back within one. A pair of Shyanne Sellers threes — including right before the first quarter buzzer — gave Maryland leads after each shot. Sellers paced the Terps with 10 first-quarter points as they led 18-17 at the end of the period.
With a lineup only seven players deep for the first three quarters, Seller stepped up to lead her side. The star junior was feeling it throughout the first half, scoring 20 points on 7-12 shooting and three makes from beyond the arc.
The Terps extended their lead to six with just over four minutes left in the second quarter — their largest of the game to that point — with Sellers driving to the basket for a layup. The score was part of a 7-0 Maryland run to build its lead to 32-23 and enter halftime up seven.
The Terps came out of the break ready to go. Allie Kubek immediately hit a layup and was fouled, converting on the three-point play to increase Maryland’s lead to double digits. The Terps went to the foul line often in the third quarter, converting on eight of their 10 attempts in the period — Kubek paced them with four makes.
Maryland’s defense kept James Madison at bay as the Dukes only converted three field goals in the third quarter and only made 50 percent of their free throws. The Terps outscored James Madison by eight points in the frame to enter the fourth quarter up 15.
Maryland’s second-half dominance continued in the fourth quarter with another excellent frame on both sides of the floor. McDaniel paved the way for the Terps over the final 10 minutes, scoring over half of her points in the quarter.
McDaniel was the lone other double-digit scorer for Maryland. The sophomore contributed 15 points on six of 11 shooting and led her side with nine rebounds.
The Terps got off to a rocky start to their season, sitting 2-3 five games in. But Maryland found its stride since then, and ended its non-conference slate rolling into its complete conference play.
“We’re going to get another opportunity similar to that stretch we had in November that we can reverse with three of the first four games on the road in Big Ten play so we’ll see how much we’ve gained from that difficult non-conference schedule,” Frese said.
