Coach Brenda Frese and the Terps were ranked No. 11 in the preseason.
Brenda Frese knows as well as anyone what a championship team looks like.
Having captured the program’s first and only national title in 2006, the 10th-year Terrapins women’s basketball coach understands exactly what it takes to elevate a team to that elite level.
But after seeing each of her five starters move on in the years following their title season, the coach’s prized program experienced a five-year fall from grace capped off by a WNIT appearance two years ago and an NCAA Tournament second-round exit last season. For years, the Terps have fallen short of the lofty heights Frese had brought them to in 2006.
But the Terps aren’t dwelling on what’s happened in years past. This season, the team is focused solely on a return to national prominence.
Now six years removed from the program’s proudest achievement, Frese believes she finally has another team ready to aspire to the sport’s upper echelon. And when the Terps’ regular season begins tomorrow against Loyola, Frese said she’ll see shades of the 2006 title team on the floor.
“The qualities and characteristics are eerily similar,” Frese said. “In terms of team chemistry, they look out for each other like sisters. And then the work ethic, the amount of time they put in their work; they’re really coachable kids. This team aims to please. … Those are keys to being successful not only on the court, but in life, and the team has really taken to that.”
It’s not just Frese who sees greatness in this season’s Terps team, however. The Terps were ranked No. 11 in the Associated Press preseason poll and picked to finish third in the ACC, signs the Terps have begun to rise back toward the top.
“We’re really happy with 11, but we know we can do a lot better than that,” forward Alyssa Thomas said last week. “We’re just going to work our hardest to try to move up.
“It’s kind of scary to think where we’ll be this year at the end of the season.”
The expectations are lofty for a team still brimming with youth. While seniors Lynetta Kizer and Anjale Barrett and junior Tianna Hawkins make up a portion of the Terps’ projected starting lineup, the team will count on significant contributions from six underclassmen, including starters Laurin Mincy and Thomas, the team’s leading scorer last season.
Though the Terps gained valuable experience over the course of last year, their inexperience remains a factor for a team attempting to cement itself among the nation’s best. If star center Kizer — who was suspended before the Terps’ first exhibition game Nov. 1 for a violation of team rules — misses significant time, it won’t be any easier.
“This team hasn’t been there yet,” Frese said. “They’ve got to get themselves to sustain and be at this level and continue to understand what it means to play at this highest level. I think it’s motivation.”
Perhaps nothing exemplifies the team’s reliance on its young players more than two of the Terps’ most prominent backcourt players: Mincy and true freshman point guard Brene Moseley. Though short on time at the collegiate level, both will be counted on heavily, along with Barrett, to steady the team’s guard play.
Mincy played in all but one game for the Terps last season but had only a minimal impact, averaging just 4.9 points per game as she slowly worked her way back from an ACL injury suffered in high school. Now fully healthy, the sophomore said she’s ready to be an offensive force for the Terps.
“I’m trying to be aggressive all around, whether it’s the defensive side or the offensive side,” Mincy said after the team’s first exhibition game against Messiah, where she scored a team-high 17 points. “If I’m open to take a shot, I’m going to.”
Moseley — who Frese said gives the team a “true point guard scorer, which we haven’t had since Kristi Toliver” — and Mincy are the perimeter talents the Terps lacked last year, and their presence on the floor this season should open up plenty of new space for vaunted frontcourt options Thomas, Kizer and Hawkins to work with.
“It gives us an inside-outside game. Last year teams packed it in on us and we saw a lot of zones,” Frese said. “With Laurin’s and Brene’s ability to shoot from the perimeter, then you got to pick your poison in terms of how you’re going to defend us. … We’ll go as far as our backcourt takes us.”
It’s been more than five years since the Terps called themselves national champions, but with much of last year’s tournament team returning, Frese said her No. 11 Terps could finally have the pieces they need to reclaim their spot among the nation’s elite teams.
But with high praise comes equally intense pressure.
“It isn’t just snap your fingers and it happens,” Frese said. “The target will always be there, whether we’re trying to prove something wrong or have people coming after us.”
vitale@umdbk.com
