When Brenda Frese watched the Terrapins women’s basketball team’s 14-player roster during preseason practices, the 12th-year coach knew it had all the pieces to reach the Final Four. But after she watched North Carolina beat the Terps in the ACC tournament quarterfinal March 7, she realized they weren’t ready to make a deep postseason run.

The ensuing two-week layoff was the Terps’ last chance to make improvements before the NCAA tournament, so Frese made sure they knew the stakes.

When the Terps returned to game action, they hit their stride. The No. 4-seed Terps have won four straight games to set up a Final Four matchup against No. 1-seed Notre Dame at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn., on Sunday night and sit two wins away from the program’s second national championship.

After six months, the team has reached the potential Frese noticed earlier in the season.

“No question [it was a turning point],” Frese said. “Those were hard weeks, hard meetings, hard conversations, but absolutely. You saw our team become a team in those two weeks.”

The coaching staff put the Terps through a series of drills, including a free throw ladder, that mostly ended with running. Guard Katie Rutan said it was the hardest two weeks she experienced since she transferred from Xavier before the 2011-12 season, and forward Alyssa Thomas said she had never experienced anything like it in her four-year career.

After the struggles against the Tar Heels, Frese knew it was “do or die.”

“I didn’t know if the team was going to get it or not in terms of the lessons,” Frese said. “You can’t continue to duplicate and replicate the same mistakes or things. If you don’t grow from them, then your season’s going to be over. We felt as a staff that we needed to be pretty drastic in terms of what needed to take place with us.”

“We ran and they tried to break us down and I think it really made us a stronger team,” Thomas said. “We really came together and bought in to being locked in and working well together.”

Though the Terps returned all but one player from last year’s rotation and brought in four recruits ranked in ESPN HoopGurlz’s top 100, they went 1-5 against ranked opponents during the regular season and suffered an early exit from the ACC tournament. It took longer than expected for the team to get used to its depth, Frese said, and players returning from injuries struggled to find their past form.

“It really, really took a while,” Frese said. “I think probably our major turning point was the ACC tournament.”

Guard Laurin Mincy, who missed most of last season after tearing her ACL, has been one of the Terps’ top scoring options off the bench during the postseason, and forward Malina Howard has been a reliable presence after losing her starting spot midway through the season.

Forward Alyssa Thomas performed well this season. But entering her first Final Four appearance, the three-time All-American has improved as a leader and helped the team through tense late-game situations, like during the 76-73 win against No. 3-seed Louisville in the Elite Eight.

“I think I’ve tried to be more of a calming presence when it comes to big games and tight situations,” Thomas said. “Just really making sure everybody is on the same page.”

In the Terps’ first matchup against the Fighting Irish this season, they faced a 22-point deficit before a second-half surge. But their comeback attempt fell short, and they lost, 87-83, at Comcast Center on Jan. 27.

Entering Sunday’s matchup, Notre Dame won’t have one of its top scorers, Natalie Achonwa, who is sidelined for the remainder of the season after tearing her ACL during an Elite Eight win against Baylor. The Terps held the forward, who is also Notre Dame’s leading rebounder, to seven points and three rebounds earlier this season. Still, the Fighting Irish will miss her presence in the frontcourt.

“She’s a senior just like us,” guard Katie Rutan said. “She’s been a leader for Notre Dame for her four years there, and you don’t want to see or hope anyone goes down with an injury like that.”

Notre Dame still has guards Kayla McBride and Jewell Loyd, who average 17.2 and 18.8 points per game, respectively. Loyd scored 31 points in the Terps defeat, while McBride had 20.

But the Terps have shown they are an improved team from the last time they battled Notre Dame. And now that they’ve tapped into their potential, the Terps are closing in on their ultimate goal: their first national title since 2006.

“We’re so close I can taste it basically,” Thomas said. “Just got to take it one game at a time, and we’re two games away from possibly being a national champion. So, it’s all about coming out and giving everything you have left.”

Senior staff writer Daniel Gallen contributed to this report.

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