Nebraska women’s basketball coach Amy Williams stood up from her crouch, brought her hands up behind her head before placing them on her hips as she paced in front of her bench.
There were still two minutes left in the first quarter, but her team already looked defeated. Maryland center Brionna Jones had just scored a layup with no Nebraska defender within two feet of her. Guard Shatori Walker-Kimbrough stepped in front of the careless inbounds pass that followed, and that brought Williams up to her feet.
Jones’ bucket was Maryland’s 10th straight point, and after Nebraska fouled Walker-Kimbrough and she sunk a pair of free throws, the Terps had a 12-0 run that gave them a 22-6 lead. Not much changed over the rest of the game, as No. 3 Maryland went on to secure an easy 93-49 win in Lincoln, Nebraska.
“We played really hard for 40 minutes,” coach Brenda Frese said.
Maryland’s defense dominated the first half, helping force Nebraska (4-11, 0-3 Big Ten) into 29 percent shooting, which was an improvement upon the Huskers’ 23.5-percent performance in the first quarter.
That included a 1-for-10 first-half effort from Huskers’ leading scorer, forward Jessica Shepard. Shepard finished with a team-high 12 points on 4 of 17 from the field, more than double the shot attempts of any of her teammates.
“We wanted to know where she was at all times,” Frese said. “We really executed the gameplan in terms of making it really, really difficult [for her].”
On the other end, Maryland (14-1, 2-0) had little trouble widening its lead. Walker-Kimbrough made back-to-back 3-pointers to open the game, and the Terps stayed hot for the rest of the first quarter, including the 12-0 run capped by Walker-Kimbrough’s steal and eventual score.
“That’s our identity,” said Walker-Kimbrough, who finished with a game-high 19. “We start our offense from our defense.”
Forward Stephanie Jones also had four points in that stretch, one of nine Terps to score in the first half. Frese played all 12 of her active players in the first half, and by the end of the game all of them had at least one point.
“You can see the waves of depth that we can put on the floor,” Frese said. “We’ve been [away] for about five days between Minnesota and this swing, so we’re a little fatigued at times.”
Maryland wasn’t flawless. Frese took a pair of timeouts in 13 seconds late in the second quarter as her team committed turnovers and allowed the Huskers to make a transition 3-pointer that brought them to within 20. In addition, Maryland made just two of its five first-half free throws and four of its first 10.
“We’re not pleased with our free throw percentage,” Frese said. “I think we’re a great shooting team [and] that we can shoot a lot better.”
Still, Maryland went to halftime with a 44-22 lead and extended it from there with the help of center Brionna Jones. Though Maryland as a team dominated the glass all game, finishing with a rebound margin of 22, Jones entered Wednesday averaging 10 rebounds a game but had none at the half.
She collected 10 boards in the first seven minutes of the third quarter, and a sequence of back-to-back layups early in the fourth frame helped her to 13 points and her fifth consecutive double-double.
“We did a god job trying to get on the glass and getting a lot of extra opportunities,” Frese said.
Jones’ quick scores were part of a 14-0 run to begin the fourth quarter that stretched more than halfway through the final period and helped the team finish more than doubling Nebraska’s point total.
It took Maryland’s lead above 40 points and was one of two five-minute stretches in which Nebraska did not score a point.
Still feeling the “sting” from her team’s loss against No. 1 Connecticut on Thursday, though, Frese said she wasn’t completely satisfied with Wednesday’s 44-point win.
“Defensively, there’s a lot of areas where I feel we can grow,” Frese said.
