Alyssa Thomas is no stranger to late-game heroics. In the month of January alone, the sophomore forward has hit a game-winning jumper against Georgia Tech and a game-tying layup at the buzzer to force overtime in a victory at North Carolina.
But as Virginia Tech salted away a stunning upset at the free-throw line in Comcast Center last night, Thomas could do little but watch from the sidelines, her left hand wrapped in a cast protecting a sprained left thumb suffered in practice Tuesday.
Without Thomas on the floor, the No. 8 Terps looked powerless to stop the Hokies as they suffered their first defeat in College Park this season, 75-69.
“It’s obviously an extremely difficult loss tonight,” said coach Brenda Frese, who met with her team for nearly 40 minutes before addressing the media. “There’s not a lot of things I can say we did well.”
“We were supposed to move forward today [from the loss against Duke],” said center Lynetta Kizer, who finished with a team-high 21 points and 10 rebounds. “It was just a mental lapse.”
The absence of Thomas was painfully obvious throughout the contest. Though the Hokies (7-14, 3-5 ACC) entered the game losers of five straight, the Terps (18-3, 5-3) seemed to lack the necessary firepower to build a lead larger than eight points, even against a Virginia Tech team regarded as one of the league’s worst.
After leading much of the first half and into the second before building their largest lead of the game inside the 16-minute mark, the Terps’ offense began to sputter. A jumper from Hokies guard Monet Tellier (career-high 31 points) gave Virginia Tech a one-point lead with less than six minutes to play, an advantage it would never give back.
Though they never trailed by more than eight in the final six minutes, missed free throws quelled whatever chance the Terps might have had at a comeback. They missed just six foul shots in the game, but four of them came in the game’s final four minutes.
“We didn’t step up and shoot the ball with confidence from the free-throw line like we normally do,” Frese said. “Those were critical misses in terms of the game, and we didn’t play with a lot of self-confidence.”
The Terps cut Virginia Tech’s lead to as little as three with just less than two minutes remaining, but turnovers from guards Laurin Mincy and Anjale Barrett helped the Hokies end it. They would close the game on a 9-6 run, celebrating a six-point upset on the Terps’ home floor.
“When you have 20 turnovers against a non-pressing team — we gave away a lot of easy baskets,” Frese said.
The loss is the team’s second straight and third in the past two weeks, leaving the Terps searching for answers as they enter a weeklong break before their next game.
“Our coaches can’t want it more for us than we want it for ourselves,” Kizer said. “This is a defining moment tonight. We have to turn it around from here and play Maryland basketball.”
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