When the Terrapin women’s basketball team started its season, there were two views on what exactly the expectations for coach Brenda Frese’s 2008-09 Terps should be.
They were ranked No. 3 in the preseason coaches’ poll and predicted to finish just barely behind North Carolina in a highly-competitive ACC. The Terps also featured two All-American caliber talents in seniors Marissa Coleman and Kristi Toliver.
Then again, the rest of the team was young and unproven. Add to that mix the losses of Laura Harper and Crystal Langhorne, the program’s all-time leading scorer and rebounder, and a drop off in wins wouldn’t have been surprising.
But in late October, at the team’s media day, Coleman made her own expectations loud and clear. She wasn’t afraid to lay out exactly what she and Toliver wanted to accomplish in their final season.
“Kristi and I have the opportunity to do something that none of the seniors before us have done, and that’s win an ACC championship and win a national championship,” Coleman said. “There’s no doubt in my mind that we can win another national championship.”
While the Terps didn’t ultimately reach that second national championship, losing to Louisville on Monday in the Elite Eight, it’s evident Coleman wasn’t bluffing.
By winning the team’s first ACC regular season and ACC Tournament championships since 1989, earning their second-straight NCAA Tournament No. 1 seed and impressing observers with their high-scoring, attractive style of play, this year’s Terp team proved its worth.
Unfortunately for Coleman and Toliver, they couldn’t get one last crack at another national crown.
“The media didn’t have those expectations for us,” Coleman said after Monday’s loss. “In our locker room, we did. We knew we could make it to the Final Four, and we fell short. But you know, we accomplished a lot of great things. I wouldn’t have rather spent my senior season with a better group of girls or coaching staff as I did this year.”
After losing their first game of the season at TCU and suffering a 29-point loss at Pittsburgh in December, concerns began sprouting up around the Terps.
But Frese made it a point to be patient while her team – full of young players such as center Lynetta Kizer, forward Dee Liles, guard Marah Strickland and guard Anjale Barrett – built chemistry.
After blowing a 13-point lead at Virginia on Jan. 30, the Terps were 16-4 overall and 4-2 in the ACC, still trying to find the right combinations to fulfill their obvious potential.
Just three days later at Florida State, the team sitting in first place in the ACC with a 6-0 record at the time, Toliver provided the moment that ignited the Terps down the stretch.
Trailing by two against the Seminoles, the program’s all-time third highest leading scorer and all-time leader in assists hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer.
The stage was set. Toliver and Coleman were unstoppable for the rest of the ACC schedule, and the younger players began to show flashes of their ability as the Terps won their next 15 consecutive games, which included three games in three days at the ACC Tournament.
Toliver, the ACC Player of the Year and a First-Team All American, averaged 18.4 points and 4.8 assists. Coleman, the ACC Tournament MVP and a Second-Team All American, averaged 18.1 points and 8.6 rebounds.
But as the NCAA Tournament wore on, the Terps’ considerable momentum began to dissolve. In their narrow Sweet 16 win against Vanderbilt, the Terps needed every bit of Coleman’s school-record 42 points to prevail.
When neither Coleman nor Toliver could repeat that performance on Monday against the Cardinals, the Terps fell without much resistance, 77-60.
“Obviously, we both had great careers here, we’re both very happy to have played with one another,” Toliver said. “But it’s just really unfortunate that we had to go out like this. It means a lot to have our team get to back-to-back Elite Eights. I told the freshmen before the game, the Elite Eight game is the toughest game to play in the tournament, and it just showed again.”
Coleman and Toliver, who are projected to be top 10 picks in the upcoming WNBA Draft, will leave a huge hole in the Terps’ lineup next season. The duo was a constant storyline this season.
They led the Terps in each of their 31 wins and struggled in their five losses. Frese spoke repeatedly about their value to the program, especially when talking to the Comcast Center crowd on Senior Night, when their numbers 20 and 25 were honored in the rafters.
Next season, Frese and the Terps will have to figure out a way to sustain the program’s success of the last four years without them.
Kizer, Liles and Strickland will all play big roles. Barrett will most likely replace Toliver at the point. Redshirt freshman Kim Rodgers, who recovered nicely after a knee injury forced her to sit out her freshman season, will figure heavily into next year’s plans. As will incoming freshman Dara Taylor, a McDonald’s All-American and elite point guard prospect.
With Coleman and Toliver gone, the expectations for the first season of the new era of Terps’ women’s basketball will definitely be lower. But if the team learned any lesson from Coleman’s thought process before this season, they might exceed those predictions again.
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