No. 17 Maryland women’s basketball’s shooting woes in second half led to loss against Nebraska

Photo courtesy of Maryland Terrapins

No. 17 Maryland women’s basketball held an 11-point lead after the first quarter and looked destined to coast to an easy victory. Instead, the Terps couldn’t buy a bucket in the latter three quarters, falling 91-71 Thursday night at the Xfinity Center.

Maryland has lost its past three home games, the last win coming on Jan. 14 against Minnesota.

Here are three takeaways from the contest.

A game of opposites

The Terps could not miss in the opening quarter, knocking down 63.2% of their shots and scoring 29 points. Maryland’s attack couldn’t be slowed down and Shyanne Sellers was a big reason why.

Sellers looked like the player she was before her injury, scoring with relative ease. She started a perfect 5-for-5 from the field and went 8-for-11 en route to 19 first-half points. Sellers consistently got to her spot in the mid-range area and was automatic.

And her vision was on point as well. With 2:05 left in the opening quarter, Sellers gathered the defensive rebound and heaved the ball down the court to a wide-open Saylor Poffenbarger. She collected the ball and finished the layup, extending the Terps’ lead to 13. Sellers ended with four assists.

But it all went downhill, as the Terps’ offense looked out of sorts and had no flow. Maryland scored just 26 points in the second half and shot just under 27%.

“I thought they were the more aggressive team, and they took us off the bounce. They exposed us,” head coach Brenda Frese said. 

Outside of Sellers — who had a game-high 23 points on 9-for-15 shooting — the rest of the team went 15-for-43 from the field. Kaylene Smikle made just two of her 10 looks.

Maryland also committed seven second-half turnovers, most of which boiled down to simple miscommunications or errant passes.

On the other side, Nebraska couldn’t miss after its sluggish opening quarter. That combined with the Terps’ offensive woes helped the Cornhuskers open a 28-point advantage.

“Time is winding down. We got four more league games, and then one guaranteed Big Ten tournament game,” Sellers said. “We got to make a choice. The locker room is full of competitors and I know we’ll respond, but we have to make a choice.”

Three-point barrage

If you just watched the first 10 minutes, you would have expected Maryland to be the better three-point shooting team coming in. And in the first quarter, it was exactly that. The Terps shot 5-for-7 from behind the arc, with Sellers knocking down two and Sarah Te-Biasu, Kaylene Smikle and Poffenbarger each hitting one.

But then the fourth-best three-point shooting team in the Big Ten got hot from deep, signaling the end of Maryland’s dominance. Amid an 11-0 run, forward Jessica Petrie and guard Alberte Rimdal rained in consecutive three-point jumpers to give Nebraska its first lead.

“I just feel like when you have a presence like Alexis [Markowski] inside and just Petrie was giving us some good looks inside, then what happens is it tends to open up better looks from behind the arc,” Nebraska head coach Amy Williams said. “A big part of that is just because of the paint touches that we got.”

While Emily Fisher nailed one of her own — the first of her collegiate career — to tie the game at 45 apiece heading into the break, the Cornhuskers offense picked up where they left off. 

Nebraska utilized an efficient 4-for-5 from downtown to open up a 14-point advantage heading into the fourth quarter. The final 10 minutes were more of the same, as it went 3-for-5 to put the game out of reach.

The Cornhuskers finished the game 12-for-21 from deep. Guards Logan Nissley, Callin Hake, Britt Prince and Rimdal combined to make eight of their 12 three-pointer attempts. Petrie added two, while Markowski and Kendall Coley each knocked one down.

Nebraska dominates the glass

The Terps entered Thursday’s contest with the eighth-best rebounding margin in the nation. However, they looked far from that against Nebraska. After outrebounding the Cornhuskers, 10-9, in the opening quarter, Maryland collected just 15 more boards the rest of the way.

Nebraska’s size caused problems, utilizing seven players listed at six feet or taller. That was particularly evident on the offensive glass, as it collected 13 offensive rebounds that resulted in 15 second-chance points. 

And the Terps — who are one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the Big Ten — couldn’t replicate their usual success. The Cornhuskers limited Maryland to just six offensive rebounds which it converted into 12 second-chance points. But most of its possessions ended with just one shot attempt.

“The biggest thing I felt like was ending the defensive possessions with a rebound,” Williams said. “They really hurt you when you give up offensive rebounds. I thought we did that in the first quarter and then we shored that up a little bit.”

6-foot-3 center Alexis Markowski recorded a double-double with 20 points and 11 boards to help fuel Nebraska’s rebounding advantage, 42-25.