Maryland Women's Basketball: Another Road Game, Another Overtime Victory

Friday, February 10, 2006

Another Road Game, Another Overtime Victory

It seems like road games and winning in overtime are the norm for the Terps this year. The first three were a little puzzling as they were against BC, UVA and Wake, but the one last night was completely acceptable as we took down the #1 team in the country, the North Carolina Tar Heels with a 98-95 victory in Chapel Hill! The team showed heart down the stretch, especially after being down 70-56 at one point, providing defensive stop after defensive stop and then watching as Ashleigh Newman grabbed a loose ball and "calmy" fired at the hoop to hit nothing but the bottom of the net. In OT, it was the same old story, grab a big early lead and walk away winners. UNC made it a battle as Latta made back-to-back 3s, but her last three was blocked by Shay Doron and the Terps have now won two straight over UNC.

This win finally proves we belong. After the debacle vs. Duke nearly a month ago, all the fans out there thought we were a paper team. Last night though proved that we can play with the big girls of women's basketball and win on their court. It was fun to listen to all the crickets chirp last night. You can't bash a team that became the only team to beat the current #1 team in the land.

Also, it's time to start watching our little bandwagon pick up steam. Suddenly new fans will come out of the woodworks. The bandwagon will pick up even more steam if we can do this again on Monday vs. Duke.

With the win, the Terps have matched last year's win total.

Game Story | Box Score

Positives

Ashleigh Newman. I don't often think that someone who shoots 1 of 9 as a positive, but when that one make is a 25-foot 3 to tie the game. She gets a ton of props.

Marissa Coleman. 23 points (9 of 15, 4 of 6 from 3), 9 rebounds and 6 steals. They may start etching her name on the ROY trophy now.

Crystal Langhorne. 25 pts, 8 rebounds. Our All-American stepped up in the biggest game like we expected her too.

Toliver. facing a relentless pressure defense, she dished out 8 assists and only had four turnovers. Remember folks, she's a freshman.

Shay's block. She got her points, but nothing was bigger than getting her hand on Latta's shot at the buzzer in OT.

Defense in the last 10 minutes. I don't know the exact score, but UNC had 70 points with at least 12 minutes left and I was fearing they would score 100 on us. 12 minutes later, UNC only had 83. That's what you call playing defense when it matters the most.

Three-point shooting. One of my keys was making the 3-pt shots. We made 52.9% of them. 7 of 9 in the second half and OT.

Negatives

Free Throw Shooting. We missed 13 of them, not good. Luckily for us, they missed 14. This is twice in the big games our FT shooting has not been good.

Turnovers. 21 is a lot, but we only had 5 in the second half and OT. Now if we can only have 5 in each half.

We didn't win by more, but I will take the win :)

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