Women's basketball’s frontcourt leaving all comers behind in wins

The way the Terrapins women's basketball team has won each of its first 11 games this season is not an exact science.

The Terps have beaten teams with their defense. They've shot opponents out of the gym. They've neutralized star scorers, as evidenced by the 1-for-12 shooting effort of Georgetown's Sugar Rodgers in a Nov. 13 Terps victory.

But whether the team wins with a stifling defense or an explosive offense, one thing has remained constant in each of its victories: the play of a dominant frontcourt.

With an impressive quartet of talents playing significant minutes in the paint for the Terps, the team's frontcourt has been almost unstoppable this season. That was never more obvious than in their past two contests, as the No. 5 Terps out-rebounded their opponents by a combined 51 and outscored them 108-18 in the paint in routs of Delaware State and George Mason on Thursday and Sunday, respectively.

"We want to be dominant in [areas] where we can excel," coach Brenda Frese said last week. "And that's rebounding; do what we do best. I think when you do that, everything else takes care of itself."

Led by forwards Alyssa Thomas and Tianna Hawkins and centers Alicia DeVaughn and Lynetta Kizer, the Terps have been a matchup nightmare in the post. Opposing defenses have yet to find an answer to the Terps' inside height, length and athleticism, which has allowed the Terps to assert their authority on the glass.

The four players average a combined 30 rebounds per game and play a big part in the Terps' prowess on the boards. Including reserve bigs Whitney Bays and Essence Townsend and the rest of the squad, the Terps average better than 47 rebounds per game. Their 20.6 rebounding-margin average is the best in the nation — the next best is 18.6 — and is about eight more than their season-ending number from last season.

"We feel like with what we have inside we can expose them," Frese said after Sunday's win against the Patriots, in which the Terps totaled a season-high 59 rebounds. "They did a tremendous job on the glass, and that's something we pride ourselves in."

Inside scoring has also been instrumental to the Terps' success thus far. The team has outscored every opponent this season by at least eight points in the paint, including a season-high 56 on Thursday against the Hornets.

Overall, the Terps win the battle in the paint by an average of more than 20 points per game.

"The scariest thing in basketball is a really talented team that understands their identity, and [the Terps] are perfect at it," George Mason coach Jeri Porter said Sunday. "That's a top-ranked team that understands [its] identity is in rebounding and in transition, and they do it to perfection."

Frese has said early and often this season that the Terps will go as far as their guards — not their forwards — take them, and their backcourt has been successful in its own right. But with as steady as the team's frontcourt has been, Frese has reason to expect continued strong play under the basket when ACC play begins next month.

"I'm excited to start seeing how we match up in our conference play coming up," Frese said. "[Especially] against athleticism and at times when you're going to be matched in terms of execution on the offensive end and defensively."

vitale@umdbk.com