With Kaylene Smikle and Bri McDaniel out for the season, there is no question that Duke transfer Oluchi Okananwa and Indiana transfer Yarden Garzon are No. 12 Maryland’s two best players.
In Sunday’s loss
to now-No. 14 Ohio State, Okananwa and Garzon left Terp fans wondering where the team would be without them.
Okananwa posted her third-highest scoring output of the season with 27 points, and added nine rebounds (seven offensive) and two steals. In the first 2:24 of the game, she had eight points, with her early outburst coming just two games after dropping a career-high 34 in a 15-point win over Indiana. Garzon followed with nine points over a 2:30 stretch later in the first quarter, with her scoring success coming one game after going 6-for-6 from beyond the arc in a 47-point win over Rutgers. The duo finished the opening frame with 19 of Maryland’s 24 points, paving the way to a 12-point lead.
Garzon ended up with 19 points on the afternoon (5-for-10 from 3), adding eight boards and five helpers. She and Okananwa accounted for 60.5 percent of the Terps’ scoring and 43.6 percent of their rebounds.
Addi Mack and Saylor Poffenbarger have had their moments this year, with Mack saving the Terps against Georgetown with 17 fourth-quarter points and Poffenbarger saving them in the thriller-for-the-ages against Minnesota with 30 points. And yes, Poffenbarger stuffs the stat sheet better than any other Terp. But on Sunday, Okananwa (17.4 points per game) and Garzon (13.4) separated themselves from Mack (10.8) and Poffenbarger (10.5), who were held to three and four points, respectively.
Anything could happen in future games, and Maryland will ride the hot hand if it’s Mack, Poffenbarger or someone else besides Okananwa or Garzon. But the current ceilings of the latter two are simply much higher than those of any other Terp.
The team has now been upset a second time. Injuries to the two players who could challenge Okananwa and Garzon as the top star presage more upset losses to come. With a bigger fish to fry in No. 3 UCLA looming on the schedule this coming Sunday, it’s clear that Maryland’s highest potential can be reached only through the talents of the two players they added through the transfer portal this past offseason.
Okananwa has taken a massive leap offensively this season. She may be all the way down at 10th in the Big Ten in scoring, but I think she has a case to be considered the best scorer in the conference. She is third in Big Ten play alone (22.7) and has already outscored leading scorer Shay Ciezki head to head in a game where she had the defensive assignment on Ciezki. She then nearly outscored third-leading scorer Jaloni Cambridge on Sunday, as Cambridge just barely edged her with 28 points in 10 more minutes.
Okananwa at her best has been incredibly difficult to stop this season. She gets to the basket for easy looks and rarely fails to cash in. It’s not necessarily flashy and acrobatic, but it’s comforting to watch as a fan because it’s so low-risk. The broadcasters for Sunday’s game were placing her among the nation’s fastest players, saying that her speed rivals that of Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo and Cambridge. After going 0-for-0 from 3 in Maryland’s loss to Illinois, she responded to my call for more 3s with a 3-for-7 effort in her 34-point performance against Indiana. She’s right at 30 percent on the season with 15 makes, and if she keeps shooting with confidence, those numbers will only improve.
Her defense on Ciezki was inspiring, and she put forth a similar lockdown performance on Cambridge early on Sunday before getting into foul trouble. She’s seventh in the Big Ten with 2.2 steals per game and has the ability to wreak havoc in the full court press, providing a rare energy, forcing turnovers and piling up easy buckets in a hurry. At times, like early on on Sunday, she has Maryland looking scary-good, as they were absolutely dominating a ranked opponent.
Garzon, meanwhile, got off to a slow start as a Terp, but now leads the Big Ten with 2.9 made 3s per game, and she’s doing it at a 41.1 percent clip. Her sharpshooting abilities, combined with her height at 6-foot-3, make her an enticing WNBA prospect. She is a nightmare for opposing teams because she will take any open 3 with no hesitation and also has impressive range.
I would like to see some more driving and mid-range work from her because I think she is a capable three-level scorer who should have the ball in her hands more often and not just be spotting up for 3s. So far this season, 65.2 percent of her field goal attempts have come from beyond the arc. Like, Okananwa, she is a step above most stars you will find on Maryland’s squad, around the Big Ten and across the country.
The Terps may be faced with the tall task of remaining in the national conversation without two of their best players, three rotation players and four players total. But they have all the heart in the world and play like a #faMily, things that are representative of all Brenda Frese teams and will guide them through tough times.
They also have two really special talents in Okananwa and Garzon. When the going gets rough, they can lean on them.
Again, anyone could step up on any given day. But right now the glimmer of hope that Maryland can still have a say in the outcome of the Big Ten is coming from those two players.
