Story By: Erin Zollars
Photos By: Sol Tucker
College Park, MD–
It appears that Brenda Frese and her Terps may have saved the best for last when it comes to being ready for the NCAA Tournament and they showed that this evening against the 13th Seeded Delaware in 102-71 run away victory.
With the victory today, it becomes the second biggest postseason total in Maryland history, with the most being 103 points against Bucknell on March 17, 2017. It is the third time that Maryland has eclipsed the 100-point total in an NCAA Tournament game.
The Terps are 17-0 all-time in NCAA Tournament First Round games under Frese.
Ashley Owusu (24 points) and Diamond Miller (23 points) led the way for Maryland in terms of scoring. The Blue Hens could not find a way to stop Owusu in fourth quarter and she was the catalyst to keeping Delaware down by 20 plus points late in the game.
Delaware (24-8), the CAA Champions, were led by Jasmine Dickey, who scored 31 points and grabbed 10 rebounds.
Dickey who has been one of the most highly regarded players in all of college basketball this season, had little to work with in the second half of the game. The Terps double team forced her to take tougher shots then she had been hitting in the first half, which Frese keyed in during her halftime message to her players.
“Well, that was Maryland Basketball. That was a lot of fun. I think you saw sitting on the last two weeks, we were more than prepared and more than ready to come out with such a competitive group. I thought we set the tone early, just being extremely unselfish, sharing the basketball. We were able to go through Angel, I thought, early to kind of set that presence, but then just really things opened up inside out, being able to kick for threes and really just sharing the basketball,” said Frese.
On Sunday the Terps will take on the 12th ranked FGCU, who upset a strong 5th ranked Virginia Tech team, 84-81. FGCU is a very good team and finished the season 30-2 entering the NCAA Tournament.
