Forward Kiah Gillespie attempts a layup during the Terps’ 101-56 win against Indiana (Pa.) at the Xfinity Center on Nov. 4, 2015.
While Terrapins women’s basketball coach Brenda Frese continues to search for players to replace former guards Laurin Mincy and Lexie Brown, she hopes her team’s forwards and centers can provide stability down low.
In the Terps’ exhibition match against Indiana (Pennsylvania) on Wednesday night, though, the frontcourt committed some errors under the basket.
The Terps missed 15 layups, 10 of which came from frontcourt players. So while the No. 9 Terps cruised to a 101-56 victory, they’ll hope to improve on their struggles finishing around the rim before opening the regular season Nov. 14 against UMass Lowell.
“I would contribute the misses to just rushing and not taking our time,” center Brionna Jones said. “What we did on the court, we tried to minimize that. We try to get the rebounds and go up strong.”
READ MORE: Walker-Kimbrough leads Terps to exhibition win
Freshman forward Kiah Gillespie, who scored a game-high 22 points in her collegiate debut Saturday against Goldey-Beacom, led the team with four missed layups, while Jones and guard Kiara Leslie each missed three.
And though the Terps entered the second quarter with a 15-point lead, they missed seven layups in the opening period.
“We’re going to have to practice going up strong,” Jones said, “and finishing through contact.”
The Terps’ height advantage over IUP appeared to minimize the effect of these miscues, however, as Frese’s squad started three players 6 feet or taller compared to just one for the Crimson Hawks. In one instance, center Malina Howard missed her own layup, grabbed her own miss and scored while drawing a foul.
And after guard Shatori Walker-Kimbrough and Gillespie missed four shots in a row later on in the first period, Walker-Kimbrough grabbed the rebound and drew a foul on the team’s fifth shot attempt of the sequence.
The Terps still scored 52 points in the paint and outrebounded IUP, 58-28. But against more physical Big Ten opponents, the Terps might not find as much success if they’re missing attempts near the hoop.
One reason the Terps might have felt rushed near the basket was an effect of the Crimson Hawks’ 2-3 zone. Frese said the Terps have more experience against man-to-man coverage, so they aren’t as comfortable against that type of defense.
“We were a little stagnant,” Frese said. “We need to spend a lot more time in terms of making the zone play us and attacking the zone and being able to make reads out of it.”
Nonetheless, Frese was encouraged by her team’s offensive performance Wednesday night. And when the Terps dive into the 2015–16 campaign in a little over a week, the Terps expect those missed layups to start falling.
“It’s just discipline, and to be able to go through the contact and just finishing,” Walker-Kimbrough said. “That was something we were focused on going into the game. Staying locked in and being disciplined, and not just playing the name on the shirt. Just trying to better ourselves.”
