The Maryland women’s basketball team has dominated the Big Ten since joining three seasons ago.
With Sunday’s win over Minnesota, the Terps became co-champions of the Big Ten, their third-consecutive regular-season conference crown. Maryland has won both of its Big Ten tournaments, too.
The Terps are 49-3 in conference games over the past three years. This season, Maryland went 15-1 — its only loss to co-champion Ohio State — with an average margin of victory of 24.6 points.
Coach Brenda Frese admits those results can make her team’s success seem routine. After winning her fifth Big Ten trophy in less than three years by beating the Golden Gophers 93-60, she insisted otherwise.
“They make it look so easy,” Frese said, “and the thing is, it’s not easy.”
Maryland was in cruise control for most of Sunday’s Senior Day victory, but the team’s duo of senior stars, guard Shatori Walker-Kimbrough and center Brionna Jones, didn’t have a clean start.
After Maryland won the opening tip, Walker-Kimbrough drove to the basket and overshot a layup. Jones grabbed the rebound off the glass but then had it knocked from her before she could try a putback.
The next time down the floor, Walker-Kimbrough tried to dribble through traffic but the Golden Gophers poked it away.
“Not [our best game] offensively, when you talk about the turnovers,” Frese said.
Jones sunk a pair of free throws soon after to tie the game at two, but Walker-Kimbrough turned the ball over on the next possession. Then, though, the seniors settled in.
Walker-Kimbrough used a ball fake to free space and drain a 3-pointer to put Maryland up, 5-2.
“You could tell when Shatori and Bri made their first shot,” Frese said, “things were going to settle in.”
Jones’ first field goal came midway through the first quarter, but she scored eight points in the period, two shy of Walker-Kimbrough’s 10. Maryland led, 26-12, after the opening quarter and never looked back.
Walker-Kimbrough and Jones were the game’s leading scorers, with 27 and 24 points, respectively.
The seniors’ performance — against Minnesota and throughout the season — embody that concept of deception Frese discussed after the game.
Walker-Kimbrough shot 5-for-7 from beyond the arc against the Golden Gophers, which sparked a flurry of celebrations from her and the bench and improved her three-point shooting percentage this season to 43.7 percent.
She is currently the most accurate three-point shooter in Maryland history. But she wasn’t a heralded shooter in high school and knocked down just 36.9 percent of her tries from deep in her first two years with the Terps. She totaled 41 triples after her sophomore season.
But she’s hit 49.1 percent of her 3-pointers since, and people associated with the program point to Walker-Kimbrough’s work ethic as the reason for the rise.
“She is always in the gym. She is truly a self-made player,” former Maryland guard Chloe Pavlech said earlier this season. “Always working on her game, always trying to develop when no one’s watching.”
Jones, meanwhile, secured her conference-leading 20th double-double Sunday, scoring 24 points and 14 rebounds. She has been a dominant post player for the past three seasons, combining soft hands with sharp post moves that helped her average more than 20 points in Big Ten play this year.
When she came to Maryland, she was less than a year removed from an ACL tear and needed to improve her overall fitness. Since then, she’s trimmed weight and added strength.
“I didn’t see this [success] coming when I came in my freshman year,” Jones said in practice earlier this year. “I didn’t expect to be here.”
The seniors’ stories exemplify why Frese bristles at the notions that her team’s success is anything short of laudable.
“That consistency level [required to play] at that high of a level over the course of a season,” Frese said, “to be that dominant over the course of 16 games.”
