Maryland women’s basketball brought a 13-game win streak back home to Xfinity Center Monday afternoon for its conference home opener against Wisconsin.
The Terps entered conference play red-hot, but they also accumulated four season-ending knee injuries over that span. However, those injuries had no effect Monday, as Maryland rolled past Wisconsin, 97-59, to make it 14 straight wins.
Here are three takeaways from the win.
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Oluchi Okananwa is a problem
Maryland had the best guard depth in the Big Ten entering the year. But as injuries continue to chip away at the reserves, Okananwa’s responsibilities have steadily increased. Against the Badgers, she showed just how ready she is for the challenge.
Okananwa simply dominated Wisconsin on both ends. Offensively, she orchestrated the offense for Frese and picked the Badgers apart.
“We’re so proud for our first conference game at home, so I think that showed off the bat in my energy,” Okananwa said. “I’m a pretty intense player if you guys didn’t know, so it was easy to lead with that.”
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More often than not, Okananwa dominated by using her elite burst to get downhill for layups or drawing fouls. But when the Badgers stepped off of her, she went 3-of-4 from beyond the arc.
Her combined efforts produced a career-high 28 points on 10-of-15 shooting from the field. She also grabbed five boards.
“Awesome to see Oluchi get her career high in under 20 minutes,” head coach Brenda Frese said.
That wasn’t all, though. Okananwa was a huge part of Maryland’s lockdown defense, buzzing around the perimeter and stopping Wisconsin’s attacks prematurely. She led the team with six steals.
Defense set the tone again
Maryland opened the game on a 14-0 run and never looked back, maintaining a comfortable lead the entire way. Several memorable offensive plays, including the back-to-back 3-pointers from Okananwa and Saylor Poffenbarger and the pull-up Addi Mack jumper, helped. But the reason Maryland developed an early 21-point lead is because it held the Badgers scoreless for over five minutes.
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“I loved the effort and intensity in the first quarter,” Frese said. “We set the tone with our defense and rebounding.”
The defensive versatility of Maryland’s long guards and wings allows Frese to throw multiple defenses at teams throughout games. She has no hesitation in switching from matchup zones, to man-to-man, to traditional zones. That flexibility makes Maryland a difficult puzzle to solve, and Wisconsin did not have the answers. Maryland also outrebounded the Badgers, 51-28.
The Badgers ended up shooting just above 30% from the field and 17% from deep Monday, despite entering the contest shooting above 44% and 34%, respectively. Maryland also corralled the Badgers’ primary scoring duo of Destiny Howell and Kyrah Daniels.
Wisconsin’s two leading scorers went a combined 9-of-29, and Howell turned it over five times. Maryland’s ability to win the turnover battle — despite committing 20 of them Monday — has been crucial to its success early in the year.
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“The intensity that we play at, it makes a difference,” Frese said. “We did some different wrinkles defensively against what they run, and in two days, this team really locked in and understood what we wanted from it.”
More than ever in recent years, Big Ten teams will come to the Xfinity Center expecting to be in for a rough night offensively.
The Terps made an early Big Ten statement
Heading into this season, Maryland was seen as a contender among the Big Ten’s elite women’s basketball teams. As the season drew on and the Terps lost three potential starting guards to knee injuries — including Kaylene Smikle, who was their leading scorer for two years — it began to seem like competing for the top spot in the conference would be too tall a task for such a shorthanded roster.
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Maryland was a statistical underdog on ESPN’s matchup predictor for its conference opener against Minnesota on the road, and many thought Wisconsin could be poised to give Maryland a real challenge in its home Big Ten opener.
The Badgers came into the matchup hot, having won their first Big Ten game against then-No. 20 Michigan State on the road. They also boasted a 9-3 overall record, with all of their losses to solid or better opponents.
Maryland’s dominant victory sent a message to the rest of the conference that its roster is deep enough to sustain the losses it has, and remain competitive in a tough conference. The Terps are the only team left in the Big Ten with an undefeated record, making a case they remain in the conference’s top tier alongside UCLA and Michigan.
“We’re going to need every single player,” Frese said. “I loved that today we could extend and get some of our depth. We’re going to need that as we go through this gauntlet of a conference.”
The Terps will have a quick turnaround, as they play on the road against Illinois Thursday.
