Lavender Briggs remembers everything. She remembers the brilliance of scoring 41 points as a sophomore at Florida. She remembers countless hours spent in the gym preparing for the next level, which felt inevitable. But those same memories are always tied to a concurrent setback.
She recalled her body constantly breaking down and feeling betrayed by her former school. She didn’t anticipate how difficult the transition to Maryland would be. Every injury she suffered felt like her “world was crashing.”
The Terps celebrate Senior Day on Sunday. Briggs and three other players will be honored. But nobody on Maryland’s roster has had a journey like Briggs. Her progression has not been linear.
“Your senior year, you’re like ‘damn, time really does go by quickly,’” Briggs said. “So then you really try to appreciate the moment rather than things that don’t really matter anymore.”
Briggs pondered when asked what aspects have lost importance.
“If you have a bad game and you can’t hit a shot or something, before, that would probably eat you up because you’re like ‘damn I’m a bum,’” she said. “But realistically, it’s like, everybody has a bad game.”
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The Diamondback compiled the usage rate and minutes per game of every Briggs teammate who played more than 10 games per season at Maryland. No player’s usage rate has declined more than Briggs’ between their first and most recent seasons. Her minutes per game have declined the fourth most of that group.
The senior has still averaged 30.3 minutes a game in her career, the most on the Terps roster.
“I think if you were taking me out of here and put me back in a different environment, say something like Florida, then I could do the exact same stuff,” Briggs said. “I think my role has changed, so I’ve changed with my role.”
The Utah native committed to the Gators as one of the top-ranked recruits in the country. She averaged 15 points per game and made the SEC all-freshman team in her first season with Florida.
Her sophomore campaign was even more impressive. Briggs had a 29.1 percent usage rate and scored nearly 20 points per game. But during that breakout season, Briggs suffered a foot injury that sidelined her for the final eight games. Her scoring stumbled from there.
As a junior, she scored seven fewer points per game, her usage rate dropped 5 percent and she missed a majority of the season with a stress fracture in her left shin.
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Briggs didn’t trust Florida to handle her injury and subsequent recovery, she said. That led her to transfer to Maryland in the middle of her junior year.
A transfer typically hopes to step into a larger role with their new team. Briggs just wanted a chance to play with stronger talent.
“In Florida, I had to take tougher shots,” Briggs said. “Playing with other good players, they can create for me.”
Her role has changed every year since arriving in College Park. Her points per game have been cut in half since her sophomore season.
Last year, a career high 27.8 percent of her shots were threes. That mark has dropped to 21.1 percent this year, the lowest of her career.
Her senior season started slow. She missed multiple games with a back injury. Now, the up-and-down season has culminated in some of the most comfortable stretches of basketball she has played in a Terps uniform.
Brenda Frese called Briggs one of the Terps’ top defenders. But defense did not always come first to the transfer.
“I felt like I was a pretty good defender at Florida, but I really didn’t care about defense as much,” Briggs said. “I cared about scoring.”
She scored 15 points in Maryland’s win over Illinois and vowed to be more aggressive offensively during the next five games. Stretches of dominance followed by derailing injuries or poor play have been the story of Briggs’ career.
Briggs struggled to define her career. She paused and chewed on her light purple fingernails before finding a succinct answer.
“I would probably describe Lavender Briggs as someone who never gave up,” she said. “She got dealt a hard hand and she just never gave up.”