No. 8 Maryland women’s basketball suffered its second loss of the season on Sunday, 89-76, to No. 19 Ohio State.
For the first time this season, the Terps were clearly the inferior group, and a blown 15-point first-half lead will leave head coach Brenda Frese searching for answers.
Here are three takeaways from Sunday’s loss.
The Okananwa effect
Oluchi Okananwa led Maryland with 27 points on Sunday, but her impact was far greater than her scoring production.
She’s been Maryland’s best player this season on both sides of
the ball. Maryland’s lone constant has been her effect on the team.
The Terps led by as much as 15 points in the first half, much to do with Okananwa’s production.
She came into the game needing nine points to reach 1,000 career points — she scored 10 points in the first quarter and 14 in the half.
“I’m extremely proud to be doing it in a Maryland jersey,” Okananwa said. “Takes me back to my freshman year, days coming in bright-eyed and wanting to play my hardest every possession of the court.”
Then, she got into foul trouble.
With Okananwa on the bench, Ohio State went on a 15-8 run to end the first half and brought the game within two points.
“We punched first to start the game, but I thought they responded really well,” Frese said. “Flipped the script on us, and I thought the second quarter was impactful.”
Early in the second half, Okananwa picked up a third foul. She had to sit for parts of the second half. The Buckeyes took the lead at the end of the third and ran with it, not letting go of their momentum for the rest of the game.
Okananwa played only 30 minutes on Sunday, and the Terps are simply not as good without her on the court. In competitive Big Ten games, the Terps will need her to play between 35 and 40 minutes moving forward.
“Not the outcome I would have hoped for in hitting my 1000 milestone, but I’ll take it and move on,” Okananwa said.
Outplayed for the first time
The Terps led by 15 early on but were outplayed in the final three quarters.
Maryland’s poor defense and Ohio State’s lights-out shooting contributed to the Buckeyes’ 13-point win.
This is Maryland’s second loss. While this one came against a better opponent, it seemed worse.
On the road against Illinois, the Terps made too many mistakes to win. At home on Sunday, that was far from the case.
Ohio State came in with the second-worst 3-point percentage in the Big Ten at 28.4%. But the Buckeyes shot 11-of-22 (50%) from deep; it was their second-best 3-point shooting game of the season.
“Don’t know that I’ve ever seen a team with 50[% from the field], 50[% from the deep], 90[% from the free throw line],” Frese said. “It was an uncharacteristic night when they’re last in the league in 3-point shooting and then able to hit it at the rate they were.”
Jaloni Cambridge dominated, scoring 28 points with nine rebounds and eight assists. The Buckeyes were also more balanced overall. Six players scored seven or more points — the Terps only had three reach that mark.
“They’re a potent team,” Frese said. “With four scorers in double figures, we had no answers.”
The Terps struggled defensively and didn’t have their best night offensively. Against Big Ten opponents like Rutgers or Wisconsin, Maryland would’ve won this game. The reason Ohio State won this game was because of how it played.
“We wouldn’t have won this game a month ago,” Ohio State head coach Kevin McGuff said. “To our players’ credit, we’ve got a lot better and this is a really hard place to win.”
Lack of production outside of Garzon and Okananwa
Okananwa and Yarden Garzon combined for 46 of Maryland’s 76 points — 60.5% of its scoring.
In the first half, it was almost exclusively the pair that kept the Terps afloat
“We have to be tough. We can’t start like that just to let down after,” Garzon said. “We have to be more consistent throughout the game.”
Rainey Welson finished third in team scoring with 12 points, shooting 4-of-8 from deep. Welson has become a strong force off the bench with her 3-point shooting, but she wasn’t the offensive production that the Terps needed.
Maryland’s other three starters — Saylor Poffenbarger, Addi Mack and Isimenme Ozzy-Momodu — combined for 12 points. The Terps needed one of those three to step up. They were relatively unimpactful.
For Poffenbarger, there’s a reason for her lack of production.
“She’s limited in practice. In the second half, she didn’t have the speed with her and isn’t shooting it like she normally is,” Frese said. “Finding as many opportunities where we can try to get her back and get her close to 100% when she’s not there.”
Mack, Poffenbarger and Ozzy-Momodu average a combined 29.6 points and typically combine for just over a third of Maryland’s scoring, but they combined for 15.8% of the Terps’ points Sunday. Even Welson’s uncharacteristically strong performance wasn’t enough compensation to keep the Terps firing late
Maryland’s starters account for most of its production. Garzon and Okananwa held their end of the bargain on Sunday. Poffenbarger, Mack and Ozzy-Momodu did not.
