No. 2-seed Maryland women’s basketball cruises past No. 3-seed Notre Dame, 76-59

On Dec. 1, Diamond Miller shushed the Notre Dame crowd after knocking down a tough fadeaway buzzer beater to hand Notre Dame its first loss of the season. 

The Terps required no such dramatic finish in the Sweet 16 rematch.

No. 2-seed Maryland women’s basketball dominated the second half en route to a 76-59 thrashing of No. 3-seed Notre Dame Saturday afternoon in Greenville.

“This is the first time [Maryland has made the Elite Eight] since 2015,” Miller said. “To know we’re making history right now, it’s amazing.”

The Terps put on a defensive clinic, holding the Fighting Irish to less than 20 points in every quarter.

“We knew that they were a little bit on their…heels without a point guard,” sophomore guard Shyanne Sellers said. “Making them feel uncomfortable is…what we tried to do and that’s exactly what we did.”

Maryland shot the ball well against Notre Dame’s zone defense early on, but struggled a bit finishing around the rim. Its defense made up for it though, already forcing five turnovers by the first quarter media timeout.

But Notre Dame outrebounded the Terps by eight in the opening quarter, as seemingly every Fighting Irish got involved in the early domination of the boards. Their work on the boards kept the game close, trailing only by two, 16-14, heading into the second quarter.

The Terps struggled to begin the second quarter as the Fighting Irish exploded on a 13-0 run, storming into a 27-19 lead at one point. Maryland turned the ball over left and right during the run, as its own turnover total reached Notre Dame’s eight by that point. 

“The physicality was pretty brutal,” Sellers said. “Ebo, Westbeld, Watson, they’re all really strong girls. So if we wanted to move on, we knew we had to battle really, really hard.”

Maryland’s offense had been so bad that its only basket in the first five minutes of the quarter was a lone three from senior guard Lavender Briggs at the 9:44 mark.

The Terps came out of the media timeout a different team though, as their offense finally began to get the gears moving. A huge factor in staunching the Fighting Irish’s momentum was the third foul for junior forward Maddy Westbeld, Notre Dame’s second-leading scorer.

Maryland shot its way back into the game, going 4-8 from behind the arc in the second quarter. But Notre Dame held a slim 32-31 lead heading into the half.

The Fighting Irish dominated the paint in the first half, outscoring Maryland 18-8 on the inside. The Terps made their living from behind the three-point line, going 5-11 compared to the Fighting Irish’s 1-4.

Miller struggled offensively for the Terps, scoring all four of her first half points in the second quarter. Miller scored 31 in the first meeting this season between the schools, but Notre Dame’s zone defense allowed none of her physical dribble drives that made her so successful this season. 

Both offenses seemed sloppy in the early stages of the third quarter. Each side had three turnovers prior to the seven-minute mark, though past this point the tides shifted.

The sides started to go back-and-forth, with each team’s key sophomore guards — Sellers for Maryland and Sonia Citron for Notre Dame — leading their respective units with nine and ten points, respectively, at the media timeout.

Maryland finally broke the one-score deadlock following the media timeout, getting a grip on the game as a whole. The Terps forced both graduate student center Lauren Ebo and junior forward Kylee Watson into four fouls before the end of the third quarter.

Maryland attacked the paint at will in the transition with much of Notre Dame’s size on the bench, going on a 13-1 run to end the third quarter with a 57-45 lead. 

Miller finally started to get going offensively, leading the team during this run with eight third quarter points. Sellers’ own nine points in the quarter proved to be huge as well, as the star guard killed the Irish with her aggressiveness in the lane along with her passing. 

The Terps continued their momentum into the start of the fourth quarter, extending their run to 21-3 while continuing to force an abundance of turnovers. Notre Dame had accumulated four in the first three minutes of the quarter alone. 

With the Terps now hitting seemingly all their shots, outhustling the Fighting Irish to almost every loose ball and continuing to play lockdown defense, Maryland cruised throughout the rest of the game hovered around a 20-point lead. 

Notre Dame had 25 turnovers and shot 20 percent from the three-point line by the end, as its offense proved to be the central factor in the loss.

Maryland now looks ahead to its return to the Elite Eight, where it will play the winner of No. 1-seed South Carolina vs. No. 4-seed UCLA. 

“We’re not finished,” coach Brenda Frese said with a chuckle. “We didn’t come here just to get to the Elite Eight.”