Maryland will probably be better next year.
Next year, they will be better-equipped to complete what they set out to do in 2024-25: Be a team of transfers that unites in an ascension to the national throne.
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Kaylene Smikle, a 2024-25 transfer, will be teamed up with 2025-26 transfer Oluchi Okananwa, and, together, the Terps’ two most-recent leading scorers will have a better opportunity to finish the job.
They’ll also have Bri McDaniel and Lea Bartelme back, freshman phenom Addi Mack and reliable bucket-getter Isi Ozzy-Momodu will be even better, and No. 7 recruit Jordyn Jackson will hopefully be able to make an immediate impact. The rest of the roster will be littered with other top 50 recruits in Rainey Welson (No. 34, 2025), Kyndal Walker (No. 35, 2024), Mimi Thiero (No. 42, 2026) and Breanna Williams (No. 45, 2024), who will have chances to further prove themselves as well.
If no one leaves via the transfer portal, then, all things considered, the Terps will gain more than they will lose in Yarden Garzon, Saylor Poffenbarger and Mir McLean.
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The odds are stacked against Maryland this year, though.
Without two of their best players in Smikle and McDaniel, as well as a key contributor from early in the season in Bartelme, they have struggled at times, with four losses to projected No. 7-seeds. Due to those losses, as well as blowout losses to elite teams in UCLA and Michigan, nobody believes they can make it past the Sweet 16.
Their fight—epitomized by a nine-point-in-44-seconds comeback vs. projected No. 4-seed Minnesota and backs-against-the-wall road wins at projected No. 3 Ohio State and projected No. 5 Michigan State—has been admirable. But they appear to be in line for their typical Sweet 16 exit, and, if momentum plays a role, their loss in the Big Ten Tournament’s second round could doom them to an even earlier elimination.
But don’t forget what head coach Brenda Frese said after the Ohio State win:
We should never show up and allow any team to make us feel inferior. Because we’re that good.
They may not have a Big 6, but they have a Big 4 in Okananwa, Garzon, Mack and Poffenbarger. They have other players who have stepped up in meaningful ways. Could Frese be right? Could people be underrating this Terp team?
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One thing we know for sure is that they want it. They’ve poured their hearts and souls into this season.
Inspiring words from Oluchi Okananwa and Brenda Frese can drive the Terps to tournament wins
On Saturday, we will discover which 16 teams will host the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament. The Terps, a projected No. 4 seed according to ESPN, are expected to be one of them.
I really feel for USC not having JuJu Watkins, but outside of the Trojans, is there another team in the country who has lost more to injury than Maryland? Yet, here they are, getting ready to potentially host.
Okananwa reflected on the adversity they’ve conquered the day before the Big Ten Tournament loss:
I am so incredibly proud of this team for what we’ve had to overcome. I mean just starting off first of all, a lot of transfers in, we have some freshmen, so you’re looking at a completely different team from last year. And I think the way we were able to just buy into that and work on our chemistry and work on knowing one another really helped with the injury component when people started going down. It actually brought us even more together. And we just kept on saying the same thing: ‘We have all we need, we have all we need.’
It put in me a lot of confidence, with people going down, roles altered, and I definitely stepped into a bigger one. I wouldn’t have been able to do that had I not had the backing of my teammates. I really did feel like they were pouring into me so much, and pouring into my confidence and my belief that I can be a big part of this team. And you look at other players on the team. Like Addi being a freshman. One word to describe her is fearless. Truthfully. Because when I was a freshman, I don’t know if I would have been able to boldly step into the position that she has. I mean just overall, what this season has been, and the wins we’ve been able to have and just the hurdles we’ve been able to overcome, it’s really inspiring.
Yes, the Terps’ ensuing loss to Oregon was sobering. But they also went one and done in their conference tournament in 2014, back when they were still in the ACC, and made the Final Four. When they won the national championship in 2006, they did not win their conference tournament, falling to UNC in the final, only to defeat the Tar Heels in the national semifinals.
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Okananwa knows all she and her team can do is look forward, saying after the loss to the Ducks:
This definitely was not the outcome that any one of us wanted. But I think Coach said it: We just have to learn from our mistakes, we have to learn from this loss. At the end of the day, it happened. There’s no way for us to reverse the clock. So it’s either, we use it, or we sink in.
I really do feel like we are going to use this as fuel for the NCAA.
Frese has had a phenomenal season of speeches, from her pregame speech at Michigan State when the Terps were trying to snap their four-game skid, to her in-game “we want the smoke” speech at Ohio State that sparked a program-record 19-point comeback.
She offered yet another after the conference tourney elimination. She told her players to make their NCAA Tournament opponents truly feel like they’re playing a team that’s been stung.
From “Don’t count out Maryland” to “We want the smoke” to, now, “They’ve got to feel this from us,” the Terps won’t be lacking inspiration as they enter the Big Dance.
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When the Minnesota game occurred, I was wishing for Maryland’s undefeated start to continue. Somehow, some way, the Terps extended my hope a little longer.
As a fan, you just pray for the hope to be extended, one game at a time.
