Diamondback Online - The University of Maryland's Independent Daily Student Newspaper

Issue date: 3/31/08 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Adam Fried

SPOKANE, WASH. - Heading into tonight's Spokane Regional Final, the Terrapin women's basketball team and Stanford have a lot in common.

Both feature an All-American - senior forward Crystal Langhorne leads the Terps and senior guard Candice Wiggins stars for the Cardinal.

Both have been here before - the Terps won the national championship in 2006, and the Cardinal was ousted in the regional finals in three of the previous four seasons.

And most importantly, both enter the game with a major chip on their shoulders.

The top-seeded Terps (33-3) and No. 2-seed Cardinal (33-3) will meet tonight with a spot in the final four on the line. Players on both teams feel like they haven't gotten the credit they deserve and have something to prove.

"We always love being the underdog," Langhorne said. "We want to prove a lot of people wrong."

Before the tournament, most experts had the Cardinal as the top seed in the Spokane region and the Terps as the No. 2.

Both teams have rallied behind their respective slights, as the Cardinal feel they deserved top billing, and the Terps felt their resumé shouldn't have been in question.

As the tournament has gone on, neither team has been talked about much as a legitimate championship contender.

"Both teams know where it's at," Terps coach Brenda Frese said. "At this point I think it really comes down to getting out on the court and executing, and which team is able to execute their gameplan."

For the Terps, the gameplan revolves around limiting Wiggins and sophomore forward Jayne Appel.

Wiggins is an elite scorer, and Appel is a tenacious low-post player who led the Cardinal with 22 points in Saturday's regional semifinal against Pittsburgh.

As always, the Terps will take a team approach to try to limit the opponent's top offensive threats.

"Candice is obviously an extremely talented player, very versatile and very athletic," Frese said. "[We need to] run so many different looks at her, just because she's extremely talented."

After the Terps did well defending a deliberately-paced Vanderbilt team in the regional semifinals, Cardinal coach Tara VanDerveer said her team might try playing a faster-paced game tonight.

A track meet would seem to favor the supremely athletic Terps, but they have struggled at times this season getting back on defense when the pace quickens.

"I'm fine with any tempo that happens," VanDerveer said. "We're fine running up and down. We want to run."

On the offensive end, the Terps will look to maintain the offensive consistency they found against the Commodores, when the Terps looked crisp from start to finish.

Their turnovers were down, their passes were better advised, and their shot selection was improved.

Playing against an underdog that's as hungry as they are tonight, the Terps are going to need another complete effort if they are to advance to the final four for the second time in three years.

The talk doesn't matter anymore.

"Obviously both teams are very talented," Frese said. "We just need to be able to come out and play 40 minutes of inspired basketball."

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