Lady Terps advance to Final Four
For the second consecutive year, the Maryland women are headed to the Final Four.
After knocking off No. 4 Duke on Saturday, they faced possibly their toughest challenge of the tournament on Monday night—the No. 2 seed Lady Vols. Tennessee played hard, hoping to secure their first Final Four appearance since 2008. They fell one game shy last year when UMD eliminated them in the Elite Eight.
History repeated itself Monday night in Spokane. The game was close until the final minutes when Maryland pulled away, going on a 17-4 run and holding the Vols to just one field goal in the final 5 minutes. Lexie Brown, Maryland’s star guard who had struggled in the first two games of the tournament, finally hit her groove. She hit three 3-pointers in the second half to lead the Terps to their 58-48 victory.
Maryland will now take on UCONN, who knocked out Dayton to advance to their eighth consecutive Final Four appearance. The two No. 1 seeds will face off on Easter Sunday, with the winner advancing to the national championship.
Ceci Ferrara
March 30, 2015
Sports Writer
Sports Insider
Wizards’ struggles continue with loss to Rockets
With the end of the regular season in sight, the Wizards seem to be crawling–not sprinting–towards the finish line. Washington has won just one game since March 18th–a hard fought, double overtime win against the Charlotte Hornets (30-41) last Friday. The latest loss, their fifth in six games, came Sunday afternoon against a depleted Houston team. They struggled to keep pace with their opponent, despite the Rockets missing starting point guard Patrick Beverley due to a season-ending wrist injury and Dwight Howard performing in a limited capacity.
“We were running things that I’ve never seen before,” lamented Washington head coach Randy Wittman afterward. “We weren’t focused on what we needed to do from an offensive standpoint.”
The Wizards, who shot just 38.7 percent for the game, trailed by eight at the end of the first quarter and 13 at the half. They were able to close the gap after the break, cutting the deficit to four at the start of the final quarter. But their offensive resurgence was too little too late, as Houston outscored them 23-19 down the stretch.
For Washington, fifth in the Eastern Conference, this was loss was especially disheartening as a victory would have guaranteed them a playoff berth. Instead, they dropped 2 12/ games behind No. 4 seed Toronto.
“We show a sense of urgency one game, and another game, we take it off,” said John Wall. “To be where we want to be and go as far as we did last year, we have to turn it around or…we’ll be down quick.”
Wall led Washington with 25 points, 12 assists and eight rebounds. Bradley Beal followed with 15 points, and Nene added 10. Marcin Gortat, who earlier in the season was often the face of the team, contributed just six points and no assists. Like his teammates, he seemed visibly frustrated at yet another loss.
“It’s been an up and down, roller-coaster season,” NBA veteran and first-year Wizard Paul Pierce said after the loss. “We’ve had our good spots and our bad spots. Right now we’re going through another rough patch. I don’t know if it’s fatigue, but everyone in the league is tired. Mental fatigue, everybody in the league is mentally fatigued. We don’t feel like there’s no team in the NBA we can’t beat. It’s just about believing it every night. That’s the thing. Sometimes it looks like we just don’t believe we can win. But I know we got the talent in this room to.”
With a playoff berth on the line and just eight games left in the season, the Wizards’ margin for error is getting smaller and smaller. If they want to make it past April 15th they will need to recapture their early season magic and find a way to finish strong.
Lady Terps
The Maryland women continued their near perfect season on Saturday with a 65-55 win over Duke in the Sweet 16.
The victory earned the Lady Terps an Elite Eight meeting with the No. 2 seed Tennessee Vols Monday night. The two teams will meet in Spokane Arena, with the winner earning the title of NCAA Women’s Basketball Regional Champion and a spot in the Final Four.
If they win, it will be Maryland’s second consecutive Final Four appearance. They advanced last year before falling to Notre Dame one game shy of the national championship.
