After the Terrapin women's basketball team's season-opening loss at Texas Christian on Nov. 14, coach Brenda Frese made it clear that her team needed to get tougher on the road.
At practice on Tuesday, Frese and her coaching staff played fake crowd noise over the Comcast Center speakers, attempting to simulate what should be a sizable crowd at Purdue's Mackey Arena, where the No. 8 Terps will play the No. 17 Boilermakers as part of the ACC-Big Ten Challenge tonight.
It will be the Terps' first game against a ranked opponent this season. But, it will also serve as a test to see if the Terps (6-1) really learned what it takes to win on the road after the TCU upset.
"Our last real road game ... obviously, we didn't like the outcome," forward Marissa Coleman said. "I think we've learned from that. We know we can't take anyone for granted, and when you're playing away, you have to be 10 points better than your opponent."
The Boilermakers should be backed by a significant homecourt advantage. Purdue (5-1) is averaging about 8,500 fans in their three home games. Their only loss came to No. 4 Stanford in overtime last Friday in Hawaii.
"[They're] a tremendous test for us, and one that we're really excited about," Frese said. "It's a tough environment. They're very, very good at home, so I'm excited to see how we match up."
The Boilermakers are led by 6-foot-2 forward Lindsay Wisdom-Hylton, who paces the team with 14 points per game and is also averaging eight rebounds. One of the Terps in charge of shutting her down will be center Lynetta Kizer, who said she now understands what it will take to win on the road after the failure at TCU.
"That's one of the best things that happened to us," Kizer said. "Now we got the opportunity to bounce back from that on the road again, in somebody else's territory, and just give it our all and go out there and just fight for it."
What makes the Terps' road performance even more critical is their upcoming schedule after tonight's game. The Terps will travel to No. 24 Pittsburgh on Sunday before ending their pre-final exam portion of the schedule at Loyola (Md.) on Tuesday night.
It's still early in the season, but Frese wants to see her team's development away from home now.
"It's a big swing," Frese said. "Obviously, back-to-back road games to be able to see how we're gonna handle both situations. I wanna see that we've improved from our last time out."
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