Maryland women’s basketball coach Brenda Frese didn’t hesitate Wednesday afternoon when a reporter asked what motivates her team.
“Uh,” Frese quipped, “winning.”
It seemed obvious as she laughed with the 2017 Big Ten regular-season trophy, her program’s fifth conference title in less than three years, on the table to her right.
What a shame her players won’t have the chance to try for a sixth in front of a hometown crowd at this weekend’s Big Ten tournament.
The Maryland men’s basketball team will play its league rounds in Washington next weekend. Coach Mark Turgeon’s squad will take the court at Verizon Center, about 30 minutes from College Park, with swarms of fans in red, black and state flag-patterned clothes throughout the stands.
It’ll be a celebration of the Big Ten’s mid-Atlantic expansion prior to the 2014 season.
Frese’s bunch deserves to have the same opportunity.
It’s one the 15-year coach thinks would be “tremendous” in a national market for a program that ranked 15th in average attendance for the last two seasons.
But that won’t happen for at least five more years.
The Big Ten and the Indiana Sports Corp have an agreement to hold the tournament in Indianapolis through 2022, according to Jessica Palermo, the conference’s assistant commissioner for men’s and women’s basketball operations.
This will be Indianapolis’s 20th time hosting since the conference started a women’s basketball tournament 23 years ago. In 2001, the teams played in Michigan. In 2013 and 2015, it was in Chicago.
The latter was the Terps’ first tournament crown after posting an undefeated regular-season conference slate less than a year post-ACC. Last campaign, they again won both titles, extending their Big Ten postseason record to 6-0.
That’s more championship triumphs than nine of the 13 other Big Ten teams, six of which have never stood on the stage after the title game with fresh hats and T-shirts, posing for pictures with a glimmering new prize.
“No matter who you’re playing, the intensity ratchets up to a new level,” center Brionna Jones said of the Terps three-peat quest. “Everybody’s going to come out and give us their best punch.”
If that success — and the flair and grit the Terps have displayed with a 49-3 combined record in league contests — isn’t enough to convince the Big Ten powers to schedule the women’s bracket in the nation’s capital, Maryland’s overall profile should.
The conference’s women’s basketball teams have combined for one national championship — Purdue in 1999 — since the NCAA started holding a tournament in 1982. The Terps, who’ve played in two of the last three Final Fours, give the Big Ten an annual contender.
And this year’s group is perhaps Frese’s best chance to reach that milestone since 2006.
Guard Destiny Slocum headlines the country’s best rookie class. Frese marveled Wednesday about the Big Ten Freshman of the Year’s confidence — the coach feels she touts more in her first year than former star Kristi Toliver — and coachability — she’s one of Frese’s favorite points guards to instruct.
Slocum’s complemented the veteran duo of Jones and guard Shatori Walker-Kimbrough well.
They celebrated Senior Day last Sunday with the program hanging their jerseys in the rafters to commemorate their record careers.
The Big Ten missed the chance for this potent team to play in front of their local supporters in one of the country’s most recognizable cities.
“We’re contracted through 2022 and we’re excited about our future in Indianapolis,” Palermo said. “For any years beyond that, we haven’t really gotten there yet.”
So, now it’s time to start planning for 2023, Big Ten organizers. Give Maryland a shorter ride home with its trophy.
