As Winter Storm Jonas rolled through the Washington area Friday and Saturday, dropping 19 inches of snow in College Park, the Terrapins women’s basketball team received a rare period of rest in the midst of a jam-packed conference slate.
The No. 5 Terps practiced Friday morning but did not work out again until Monday afternoon. Their home game against No. 18 Michigan State, originally scheduled for Saturday, was moved to Monday night. It was later postponed indefinitely as snow continued to fall throughout the weekend.
Coach Brenda Frese’s team typically competes twice a week during Big Ten play — once during the week and once on the weekend.
But the Terps will have had a weeklong break between their Jan. 20 win over Wisconsin and Wednesday night’s game with Penn State, something they say will benefit them as they navigate the rest of the conference season with hopes of capturing a second straight Big Ten crown.
“We’ll see tomorrow how we play, but yeah, I think that’s what we needed,” guard Shatori Walker-Kimbrough said. “Just some rest, get our mind right. I feel like we can reset now, not only with basketball, but especially with school starting — just starting fresh, and I think that was good.”
READ MORE: Shatori Walker-Kimbrough leads Maryland past Wisconsin
The Terps (17-2, 6-1 Big Ten) enter their game against the Nittany Lions (8-11, 3-5) with their lone blemish in conference play coming at home against then-No. 9 Ohio State on Jan. 2. After the Terps went 18-0 against league foes a year ago and won the conference tournament title, the result marked their first-ever loss as a member of the Big Ten.
Nevertheless, the Terps — who were picked to win the conference in both the media and the coaches’ preseason polls — sit a half-game back of the Buckeyes for the top spot in the Big Ten standings and rank among the conference’s best squads in nearly every statistical category.
They’ve allowed just 56.2 points per game, the best mark in the Big Ten. It’s a product of the Terps staying true to their identity — defend, rebound and run — Walker-Kimbrough said after practice Thursday. They lead the conference in offensive and defensive rebounding, and their rebounding margin (17.7) leads the country.
With extended rest, the team will enter the Bryce Jordan Center looking to limit a Penn State scoring offense that ranks in the bottom half of the 14-team conference.
“We weren’t able to get in, so we had about 72 hours off before we could practice, which isn’t a terrible thing, I think, in this stretch of time,” Frese said. “Sometimes your body needs more rest than anything else. So, good chunk of time and then back at it to be able to help with the second half.”
With 11 games to go before the Big Ten tournament, which begins March 2, the Terps are now focused on areas in which they believe they need to improve.
Frese said the Terps have emphasized free-throw shooting in practice — they shoot 72.5 percent as a team — and both the veteran coach and center Malina Howard mentioned taking care of the basketball. Despite giving the ball away 12 times against Wisconsin, the Terps are averaging about 15.3 turnovers a game. Their plus-0.2 turnover margin, meanwhile, is ninth in the Big Ten.
After a few unexpected days off, the Terps returned to Xfinity Center on Monday and Tuesday to work on these facets of their game, in keeping with Frese’s philosophy: Work plus rest equals success.
“I think that definitely that was a good chunk of rest,” Howard said. “It’s a balance between both — like, they know when our bodies need rest and we know when we have to get in and we have to work hard and get back to things. So I think that it was good for us.”
