Before the Maryland women’s basketball team traveled to Ohio State on Monday, coach Brenda Frese said she expected Buckeyes guard Kelsey Mitchell to “get some of hers.”
She was right. Mitchell scored 31 points and tallied six assists, leading the Buckeyes to their third consecutive win over Maryland, this time by the score of 98-87. No. 12 Ohio State shot over 60 percent and had five players in double figures.
The win puts the Buckeyes (24-5, 14-1 Big Ten) in a tie with No. 2 Maryland (26-2, 14-1) for first place in the Big Ten with one regular season game left. It marks the third time the past two seasons Ohio State has beaten the Terps, who have not lost to another conference team since joining the league in 2014.
The teams were tight early, with the Terps seniors powering Maryland’s offense. Center Brionna Jones and guard Shatori Walker-Kimbrough scored the team’s first 16 points to give the Terps a four-point lead about halfway through the first period.
Mitchell and forward Shayla Cooper kept the Buckeyes in it by combining for 17 points in the first six minutes.
Guard Destiny Slocum provided the Terps their first non-senior points with a 3-pointer that put her team up, 19-18, with four minutes left in the first quarter. But Cooper answered with a triple of her own. That sparked a 12-0 Ohio State run, and Maryland never led again.
“Their first-quarter punch really impacted us hard,” Frese said.
Cooper’s long ball came in the middle of a dazzling stretch for the Buckeyes in which they made 15 consecutive shots, including five three-pointers, that lasted over 11 minutes. Jones and Walker-Kimbrough had 19 of the team’s 22 points in opening period, but Mitchell had 15 and the Buckeyes led, 35-22.
“We just have to continue to get better on team defense,” Walker-Kimbrough said. “Continue to trust each other on defense, continue to trust the help-side.”
After an exhausting pace early on, play slowed down in the second period, aided by some sloppy play from both teams. They combined for 13 turnovers in the frame. The Buckeyes followed up a 77.8-percent shooting performance in the first quarter with a 6-for-13 showing in the second.
That allowed Maryland to chip away — Walker-Kimbrough led the way with nine of her team-high 29 points — but the Terps entered the break trailing, 49-40.
“Shatori was sensational in trying to put the team on her back,” Frese said.
The 15th-year coach was optimistic about her team making a comeback in the second half. Frese didn’t think Ohio State had “too many” uncontested looks in the game and hoped the Buckeyes shooting — 64.5 percent from the field, 70 percent from 3-point range in the first half — would regress to the mean after halftime.
Instead, the Buckeyes made seven of their first 10 shots in the third quarter and opened their lead to 16 points — their largest advantage of the game — with three minutes and 38 seconds left in the period.
“When you look at the percentages,” Frese said, “they didn’t quite even out.”
The Buckeyes didn’t score again in the third quarter, allowing the Terps to put together their own run. They scored 14 straight points, which included a pair of 3-pointers from Slocum, another from guard Kristen Confroy and five points from Walker-Kimbrough. That cut Ohio State’s lead to 68-66 entering the fourth quarter.
“We finally settled in as a team,” Frese said, “but we got tired and [committed] fatigue turnovers.”
The teams traded buckets early in the fourth, but the Terps never got even. With about five minutes left, the Buckeyes led by four. A minute and a half later, the lead was 10, and Maryland never got closer than six as Ohio State knocked down its free throws to seal the contest.
“When they shoot like that, they can go all the way,” Frese said. “If you shoot 63 percent from the field and 55 percent from the three-point line, there’s not going to be a lot of people that can touch you.”
