Takeaways from No. 7 Maryland women’s basketball’s 74-66 win over No. 16 Kentucky

Maryland women’s basketball is spending its Thanksgiving on the sunny beaches of Carolina, Puerto Rico. The Terps should be waking up satisfied for tomorrow’s holiday after notching a massive non-conference win against the top-20 Kentucky Wildcats.

Here are three takeaways from the win.

Garzon and Smikle dominated

Maryland led 8-0 without receiving much from two of its best scorers: Kaylene Smikle and Yarden Garzon.

Smikle has been slowly recovering from a nagging leg injury, while Indiana transfer Garzon — usually a sniper — has stumbled out of the gates from a shooting standpoint.

The two put their problems deep in the rear view mirror, combining for 39 points. They carried Maryland’s offense in the first half and single-handedly had the Terps up at the break.

“They really settled us in and played really confident,” head coach Brenda Frese said.

Smikle’s success came from doing what she does best: creating offense by taking on her defenders off the dribble. She rocked defenders to sleep before blowing past them with a crossover or behind the back.

If she didn’t finish at the rim, she drew a foul. A couple times, she did both, celebrating with her typical roar and flex under the backboard. Smikle tied Kentucky’s Tonie Morgan for a game-high 22 points.

“Getting downhill is simply something that I’m really good at,” Smikle said. “I feel like I’m just playing my game and knocking down free throws when I get fouled.”

Garzon also leaned on her offensive strong suit, knocking down 3-pointers. She came in ready to fire off the catch, knocking one down early and seemingly falling right into her shooter’s rhythm.

Garzon ended up 5-of-10 from deep, with all but two points sourced from beyond the arc, and provided major momentum boosts. Late in the third quarter, Kentucky missed a wide-open three that would’ve cut the advantage to five. Smikle pushed in transition and found Garzon on the wing. She splashed a three, pushing Maryland’s lead to 11 instead.

“We had Yarden shoot the ball extremely well,” head coach Brenda Frese said. “I thought we were able to spread them out.”

Maryland’s supporting cast arrived in the second half, taking some burden from Smikle and Garzón. But that duo paved the way to victory for Maryland.

Maryland stopped Kentucky’s bigs

As consistent and solid as Maryland women’s basketball have been in recent years, one of the team’s biggest issues has been its lack of a force in the post. Maryland has suffered at the hands of teams with elite front-court presences.

Kentucky has two such players in six-foot-five leading scorer Clara Strack and six-foot-four stretch four Amelia Hassett. The Terps shut them down as they combined for just 19 points on 8-of-19 shooting from the field. Strack averaged just below 17 points per game coming in while Hassett was at 11.6.

Instead of countering with Maryland’s own post players, Frese went hard the other direction. Isimenme Ozzy-Momodu and Marya Boiko, Maryland’s two traditional centers, played a combined four minutes. Mir McLean and Saylor Poffenbarger were tasked with fronting Strack and preventing her from catching the ball in the post.

“I thought Saylor and Mir had the toughest assignment with Strack,” Frese said. “To hold her to nine points and nine rebounds, I mean she’s been averaging a double-double. They were just really, really good.”

They made her extremely uncomfortable and caused Kentucky turnovers as the Wildcats’ efforts to force it down low led to errant passes.

The two did cause problems for Maryland on the other end of the floor, blocking a combined five shots. Kentucky didn’t get into a groove offensively until it started playing through Morgan, but at that point, Maryland had already built an insurmountable advantage.

The Terps also avoided foul trouble, sending Kentucky to the line a total of four times — just once combined for the two frontcourt players.

Maryland’s resume continues to get stronger

Now eight games into its season, the Terps have cleared their toughest hurdle. Their resume looks flawless.

They have a 19-point win over a power-conference foe in Georgetown, double-digit victories over two potential mid-major tournament teams in George Mason and Princeton, and now an eight-point victory over a previously undefeated top-25 SEC team.

“[That’s a] really, really good win that’s going to pay dividends for our future,” Frese said.

Due to Frese’s softer non-conference scheduling this season, Maryland has an opportunity to turn 8-0 into a lot more. The Terps don’t play another currently-ranked team until mid-January, when they have a brutal stretch of No. 18 USC, No. 3 UCLA, No. 11 Iowa and No. 22 Washington in succession.

Maryland’s toughest upcoming tests are Minnesota on the road to open conference play and Ohio State at home, but on paper, it will be favorites in all 10 games before the USC matchup.

If it can continue to handle business, there is a possibility the Terps can enter that stretch as one of the last unbeaten teams in the country.

This non-conference scheduling style has been utilized by Kim Mulkey’s LSU teams to great success, and it allows Maryland to build strong metrics that will eventually be evaluated by the NCAA’s selection committee for March Madness.

“We felt like last year we didn’t have as many opportunities to extend our depth and play our bench,” Frese said. “I don’t know that we’ll ever have it figured out in this new normal.”