Maryland freshman Addi Mack played in the third-highest of Minnesota’s four high school divisions, Class AA.
But somebody must have forgotten to tell her that her perceived lack of higher-level experience
meant she wasn’t supposed to be a key NCAA Division I contributor right away, especially not on the No. 9 team in the country that was expecting to be led by star returners and transfers.
Mack’s absence from the 2025 SportsCenter NEXT 100 seems puzzling now that we’re nearly two weeks removed from her 17 fourth-quarter points that jolted her sleepy-through-three-quarters Terrapins to a 25-point turnaround and 19-point win over Georgetown, snatching optimism from the jaws of concern. She actually went on a 7-0 individual run to open the final frame and put the Terps up one. Her game-high 23 total points came in just 19 minutes on 9-for-13 from the field and 4-for-4 from the line.
She followed it up last week by winning National (yes, national) Freshman of the Week after a team-high 15 points, six assists and three steals in a Nov. 13 win over Towson and 15 points, six rebounds, four assists and two steals against some real Division I competition in Princeton, an AP poll vote recipient, last Sunday.
Mack scored 4,687 points in high school as a Redhawk representing Minnehaha Academy in Minneapolis, the second-most in state history. One can only imagine that someone with that on their resume must have been chomping at the bit to prove the top 100 list wrong. Maryland head coach Brenda Frese must have had the same feeling about wanting to show off her overlooked recruit. After Mack’s heroics against the Hoyas, there had to be a certain degree of smugness behind Frese’s face lighting up when she said:
I’ve been fortunate because I’ve seen a lot of Addi’s games and just know how talented and successful and just how fearless (she is). I love seeing it on this big stage; that’s why she came here, and she’s gonna have a lot more moments like this. She’s never afraid. If you would have seen our NC State (preseason) game—she was fearless. I know her game, but watching the response of her teammates was just awesome—to be able to just see the confidence that they have in her.
Mack is currently day-to-day with an ankle sprain she suffered against Princeton. She missed the Terps’ 95-49 demolition of Bethune-Cookman on Thursday, but expect her to be back and to continue to be a key factor throughout the season. Maryland was in serious danger of losing to Georgetown and she saved them while under pressure. It wasn’t just 23 points in a blowout. Plus, she proved herself again against a legit Princeton team. She is third on the team with 12.2 points per game, while shooting 55.8 percent from the field and 10-for-10 from the stripe.
They say scorers score, but the reality is that not all of them do when they move up a level. So far, Addi Mack has.
The loss of Bartelme could be bigger than the box score suggests
It’s not all good news for the now 6-0 Terps. Losing freshman starting point guard Lea Bartelme for the remainder of the season due to a torn ACL is significant. Not counting the game in which she got injured and only played 10 minutes, Bartelme averaged 23.3 minutes per game—and they were impactful minutes. She has already been praised for her basketball IQ, poise in running the offense and other skills that don’t show up in the box score.
However, the box score was pretty good too: 8.3 points (not counting the game she got hurt) and 3.8 assists (including four in the game she got hurt) per game, 52.4 percent shooting from the field and a promising 3-for-7 start from beyond the arc. Like Mack, she looked like she was going to be a key contributor throughout the season.
Without her, Maryland is down a weapon. They got Kaylene Smikle, who missed the first three games with a leg injury, back, and are expected to eventually get Bri McDaniel back from the ACL tear she suffered last year. Those are even bigger weapons. But clearly, Maryland is a better team with Bartelme.
Mack filled in as the starting point guard in the first game without Bartelme (against Princeton), notching four helpers and just two turnovers. With Mack out against Bethune-Cookman, redshirt freshman Kyndal Walker got the start, also posting four helpers and two turnovers. Maryland will want Mack off ball as much as possible to give her more scoring opportunities, so it would be encouraging to see Walker keep up her solid play against more competitive teams and run the point at least part of the time.
Does Maryland have enough 3-point markswomen?
In the season opener, Oluchi Okananwa went 4-for-4 from distance and Saylor Poffenbarger was nearly as good with a 3-for-3 effort. Afterward, I hoped that both would shoot in the high 30s on the season.
Poffenbarger, a career 29.5 percent 3-point shooter, is now 15-for-29 (51.7 percent). It’s really exciting to see her finally cashing in on 3s at such a high clip—she’s been a high-volume shooter since her days at Arkansas. Okananwa has cooled off with performances of 1-for-7, 0-for-3 and 0-for-2 mixing in with a pair of 1-for-1 showings for a current clip of 38.9 percent. That’s still really good; Maryland needs her to keep shooting and increase her volume from her time at Duke.
The team’s best 3-point sniper, Yarden Garzon, went 1-for-5 in the opener and continued to struggle over the next two games, going 2-for-9 and 1-for-5 again. But over the last three, she’s been 2-for-4, 3-for-8 and 2-for-4 to push her over the 30 percent threshold at 31.4. Expect her to be a lethal and clutch weapon from downtown come Big Ten play.
Smikle is 3-for-8 over her first three contests; she’ll need to shoot well from 3 this year to help the Terps reach their offensive upside. Meanwhile, time will tell what kind of 3-point shooter Mack will be at this level; she’s off to a 3-for-11 start.
What’s next for the Terps?
Maryland hosts the George Mason Patriots on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. ET (Big Ten Network) in their seventh=consecutive home game to open the season. GMU (4-1) made their first-ever NCAA Tournament last year and was picked to finish second in the A-10 this year. They lost their season opener in overtime to Temple, a team our Beckett Harrison has identified as a mid-major to watch, and beat Georgetown by seven.
