Less than two minutes into its game against the Terrapins women’s basketball team Sunday afternoon, Northwestern coach Joe McKeown called a 30-second timeout with his team already in a hole against the No. 8 team in the country.
The Terps came out firing. Center Brionna Jones opened the scoring with a layup after the Wildcats missed their first attempt. Guard Kristen Confroy followed by splashing a 3-pointer and guard Shatori Walker-Kimbrough got in on the scoring action with a mid-range jumper moments later.
Three possessions into the game, the Wildcats faced a 7-0 deficit.
Northwestern scored the next four points, but that’s as close as the Terps allowed their Big Ten foe to get in their 80-62 win at the Xfinity Center. Coach Brenda Frese’s team held a 13-point lead after a first quarter and carried that early domination to its fourth straight win.
“We really set the tone from the tip,” Frese said. “Jumped out early to make a statement, especially after [Northwestern’s] big win against Ohio State.”
Guard Brene Moseley, who scored a team-high nine points in the opening period, finished with 17 points and seven assists. Confroy, meanwhile, led all scorers with 24 points and pulled down 10 rebounds — both career highs. The 5-foot-9 sharpshooter tied a school record with eight threes and finished 8-for-10 from behind the arc. She was one of four Terps to score in double figures.
“These two were sensational today,” Frese said. “Both ends of the floor, I thought [Moseley] really set the tone for us — when to score, when to get people involved. And then credit the team. I thought they did a phenomenal job finding [Confroy] and being able to get her those kicks.”
Frese also attributed Confroy’s performance to the hours she spends in the gym putting up shots. Plus, the veteran coach noted that Confroy’s sharpshooting forced Northwestern to abandon its zone defense.
“[Sunday] was just a good day, and I thought my teammates did an awesome job of finding me,” Confroy said. “You can’t shoot threes without assists, so I owe it all to them.”
Confroy knocked down her second long ball with the Terps leading 7-4 in the first quarter, and Moseley scored the squad’s next seven points to extend the lead to double digits. After 10 minutes, the Terps had used a 26-point effort to build a 13-point edge.
Walker-Kimbrough, who finished with 14 points, nailed a jumper about four minutes into the second quarter to put the Terps (16-2, 5-1 Big Ten) it 34-15, though Northwestern (13-5, 2-4) responded with 10 straight points to get back within single digits. After an and-1 with 1:09 left before intermission, the Wildcats were down just eight.
But the final minute belonged to the Terps, as Confroy knocked down another 3-pointer and Walker-Kimbrough converted an and-1 of her own to push the lead out to 14 points at the break.
“When things get close, they dial in and are able to expand the lead, so we’re really dangerous when we can do that” Frese said. “It was huge because again, Northwestern just kept coming at us.”
Confroy continued to hit long ball after long ball in the second half to keep the Terps up comfortably. They also out rebounded the Northwestern, 52-31, and held the Wildcats to 37 percent shooting in what Frese called one of their best defensive performances of the season.
Ultimately, though, it was the Terps’ first-quarter performance that set the tone and carried them to another dominating victory.
