REACTION - Mississippi State 84, Maryland 55

Before everyone hits the panic button, before everyone starts writing off the Terps this season, before everyone assumes that this is a team that won't do anything this year and we might as well just cancel the rest of the season and fire Brenda and go get Jeff Walz back or make a billion dollar offer to Pat or Geno or something equally as crazy, allow me to say one word.

Pittsburgh.

If you'll recall early last season, last year's team had a performance much like this one at Pittsburgh. It was an odd road trip at around this time of year (it was December 7 of last year so maybe a week or two later) against an up-and-coming opponent ranked low in the polls but who had a ton of potential and a superstar that was able to take over a game and did so. And this opponent and this star player were both hungry to prove to the nation that they were for real and they wanted to do so by knocking off the Terps, who are still seen as a big name in women's college basketball. And they came out and played their best game and flat out whipped a Maryland team that probably ran out of gas from the adversity from the trip and and the energy and intensity from the other side. And they got slaughtered, having run in to an absolute buzzsaw that they had no way of stopping.

That 86-57 destruction where Brenda Frese benched Marissa Coleman in the second half and Pitt's Shavonte Zellous went for 20 of her 26 in the second half didn't end the Terps season last year. In fact, it did quite the opposite. Maryland went on to win 24 of their next 26 games, including an ACC title, before falling in the Elite 8 to Louisville. So one bad performance on one bad day and one bad trip doesn't signal the end of a season. Especially not when it's not even December yet.

With that said, this isn't last year's team and it's very possible that the Terps did just get exposed in a big, big way as a team that has a ceiling that's not too high this year as we all thought in the preseason. This was not good and it's not a total shock when one realizes how young the Terps are and some of the struggles they had at times with New Hampshire and Old Dominion. They simply weren't ready for this kind of road trip, they simply weren't ready for this kind of opponent, and they simply weren't ready to go up against a player like Alexis Rack.

I warned everyone about Rack in my (almost) gameday post, talking about how she was first team All-SEC last year, preseason first team All-SEC this year, and, most importantly, how she lit up the Terps last year, especially from three. And boy, did she ever top herself yesterday.

She dropped 43, tied for 4th most in a single game in school history, including 7/13 from behind the arc. Those threes were only half of her field goals on the day, however, as she scored inside and out. There was absolutely no answer for her and unlike Zellous of Pitt last year, she started rolling early and so did the Bulldogs. It was 14-2 just under 3 minutes in and it was 28-8 just under 10 minutes in. It was never close and it just got uglier and uglier until the merciful final whistle.

So what does Maryland take from this? Well, obviously there's a lot of growth to be done. The first thing to work on is probably defense, especially on individual players who can take over games like Rack did. The second thing to work on is probably taking care of the basketball, as there were 28 turnovers yesterday as opposed to only four assists. That's where you start, I suppose. Shooting just 30.8% from the floor and 23.8% from three also needs to improve but I'm not as concerned about that. Mama said there'd be days like this; you're not going to shoot the lights out like against Old Dominion every night. Besides, it's not like they're ever going to be shooting against the Humphrey Coliseum backdrop ever again. But you can't shoot like that and expect to win games. That has to improve as well.

Believe it or not, there WERE a few positives. Jackie Nared had a relatively nice game, grabbing 10 rebounds off the bench and scoring 9 points. She got 22 minutes after getting just 5 against ODU and she made the most out of them, perhaps earning more. Also, the team not only did a good job of getting to the free throw line but they shot relatively well once they got there. 18/24 (75%) is a nice job, especially when it can become easy to stop driving the lane and instead just bomb jumpers when you fall down big.

Other than that...well, there's just not much good to look at. Dara Taylor got the start at point guard and, well, she might have given the job away already. 3/10 from the floor, 1/5 from three, 1 assist, 8 turnovers, and she fouled out. It's not like Anjale Barrett set the world on fire (1/5, 1 assist, 4 turnovers) but I wouldn't be surprised to see her reclaiming her starting point guard job tomorrow against Samford. Then again, maybe the long-term plan is to give the job to Taylor and let her work through the growing pains. We'll see.

Lynetta Kizer, despite nearly getting a double double, was also pretty bad, shooting just 3/8 from the floor. She did grab 12 rebounds but she has to do better on the offensive end, period. Diandra Tchatchouang had her first bad game too as she was just 2/9 from the field with 6 turnovers but 2/5 from three isn't too bad. Lori Bjork was a total no show, taking just three field goals and not making any. You have to expect more than that from your senior leader. I'd go so far to say as that Bjork's been the biggest disappointment of the young season thus far; she really needs to assert herself as one of the best scorers on this team and she's simply not doing that, nor is she showing much senior leadership. Kim Rodgers had as many turnovers (5) as field goals attempted and she only made one of those so it wasn't her best game, either.

All in all, it was a total dud from the Terps but what can you do? Mississippi State was a hungry team determined to prove a point that they're here to stay this season and Rack was simply a player on a mission who performed her magnum opus. Like I said before, Mama said there'd be days like this. Brush it off, move on, worry about Samford tomorrow, and get the season back on the right track. Again, it's not even December. One performance doesn't define the season, even if it was a really, really, really bad one.