With the clock winding down in the third quarter, Terrapins women’s basketball guard Brene Moseley attempted to extend her team’s one-point lead over Michigan on Thursday night by driving to the hole. The Terps were struggling shooting from the field, and Moseley was looking to get a high-percentage shot near the rim.
Her shot missed, but center Brionna Jones, who was positioned beneath the basket, grabbed the rebound and converted the put back as time expired.
While Foul trouble limited Jones for much of the contest, the preseason All-Big Ten honoree dominated the game late, starting with her basket after Moseley’s errant attempt. Jones ended up scoring nine of her 13 points in the fourth quarter to help the No. 8 Terps fend off the Wolverines, 74-67, at the Crisler Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
“Being able to get Bri Jones back into the game I thought was a big difference in the fourth quarter,” coach Brenda Frese said. “She was just able to play.”
Before Jones’ strong fourth-quarter effort, the Terps leaned on guard Shatori Walker-Kimbrough and forward Tierney Pfirman, who finished with 16 and 15 points, respectively. In fact, Pfirman’s scoring performance marked a season high for the senior.
The duo shot a combined 11-for-22 from the field to overshadow the team’s 40.9 field-goal percentage, which is the Terps’ second-lowest mark in that category this season.
“Both teams were trying to take away each other’s strengths,” Frese said. “You saw a lot of triangle and two by Michigan, trying to take away our scoring. Obviously, we were really focused on Katelynn [Flaherty] and trying to make her shots difficult. So a lot of the other players had to step up. For us, it was Tierney Pfirman.”
Frese’ squads’s subpar shooting percentage came after the Terps, who entered this game third in the country in scoring at 86.5 points per game, opened Thursday’s contest on an offensive tear. Guard Kristen Confroy began the game with back-to-back threes, while guard Walker-Kimbrough, the team’s leading scorer, made two from long distance in the following minutes.
The Terps (15-2, 4-1 Big Ten) were 4-for-4 from behind the arc in the opening minutes, but Michigan (10-6, 2-3), which also average more than 80 points per game, answered its opponent’s initial spurt and kept the deficit at six at the end of the first quarter despite allowing 25 points. Wolverines leading scorer Flaherty paced her team with nine points.
Jones picked up her second foul early in the second quarter, prompting Frese to replace her with forward Brianna Fraser and keep Jones, who had two points and two rebounds, on the bench the rest of the half.
It was an unfamiliar stat line for Jones — she entered the game scoring 14.4 points and grabbing 9.1 boards to per game — and was one that hurt her team, too. The Terps led 45-37 at the half, but Michigan held a 24-14 advantage in the paint.
Jones started the third quarter, but Flaherty scored five quick points. Then she picked up her third personal at the 6:17 mark and returned to the bench. And less than a minute later, she watched center Hallie Thome convert an and-1 to put the Wolverines ahead for the first time.
But facing a rare deficit, the Terps shut out Michigan for the rest of the quarter. They scored five points during that span, two of which came from Jones at the buzzer.
“We knew it started on defense at the end,” Walker-Kimbrough said. “We knew we had to make shots difficult and to limit them to one shot.”
While Moseley finished 2-for-11 and made just one of her shots from behind the arc, the shifty reserve started the final frame by splashing the team’s first three-point shot since the first quarter. Suddenly, the Terps were up six.
From there, the threat of a potential upset on the road vanished. With two fouls to give, Jones finished the contest in dominating fashion, doing all she could to ensure the Terps would return to College Park with their fourth Big Ten win.
“Sometimes you just have to be able to find a way to kind of grind out a game and find a way to win, and I thought we did that tonight,” Frese said. “Every game in conference is going to be a tough game, especially going on the road. I thought did a phenomenal job.”
