RALEIGH, N.C.
With just over a minute remaining in the Raleigh Region final, coach Brenda Frese took out senior stars Marissa Coleman and Kristi Toliver. They received a standing ovation from the Maryland faithful in attendance and, tearing up, embraced their coach before taking a spot on the Terrapins’ bench.
The scene was nearly identical to the one a week ago at Comcast Center, when Coleman and Toliver celebrated their last game in College Park.
But Monday night at RBC Center, the tears were flowing because their Maryland careers were over as the top-seeded Terps came a game short of the Final Four for the second year in a row, falling to No. 3 seed Louisville 77-60.
Louisville advanced to its first Final Four and will face the winner of Monday’s Oklahoma City Region final between top-seeded Oklahoma and sixth-seeded Purdue.
The Cardinals won the opening tip and controlled the game for all 40 minutes. They never trailed, and the Terps tied them only once — at 11-11 seven minutes into the game.
Coleman wasn’t able to dig the Terps out of a deep hole the same way she did two days earlier against Vanderbilt, when she put on a clinic of individual talent in scoring a school-record 42 points.
The Cardinals refused to suffer the same fate. They doubled Coleman and Toliver every time they tried to drive to the basket, and even when they didn’t have the ball, a Louisville defender was never more than an arm’s length away.
With virtually no room to work, the seniors were forced to either take contested jumpers or kick it out. As a result, Toliver and Coleman could never get in any sort of rhythm, and neither could Maryland’s offense.
It was a smart strategy by Louisville coach Jeff Walz, who was well aware that as the seniors go, the Maryland offense goes. The Terps’ 60 points was their second-lowest output of the season. Coleman finished with 18 points on 6-for-12 shooting and Toliver had 14 points on 5-for-15 shooting.
Coleman tried to bring the same energy to the deflated Terps whenever she could. After making a driving layup and getting fouled early in the second half, she punched the padding of the basket upright. But Louisville’s suffocating defense was too much to overcome.
Angel McCoughtry, Louisville’s all-time leading scorer, paced the Cardinals with 21 points. And teammates Deseree’ Byrd (17) and Candyce Bingham (15) provided sufficient support.
Louisville’s slow-paced, methodical offense kept the Terps guessing all night. In particular, two different backdoor plays gave them a steady diet of easy layups.
Louisville used a 9-0 run midway through the first half to grab the upper hand. From there the Cardinals were able to control the tempo, and the Terps weren’t able to recover. Byrd walked the ball up the court on nearly every possession, and Louisville was content to use the entire shot clock.
The Cardinals also made a conscious effort to get back on defense in order to cut down the Terps’ fast-break opportunities. Two or three guards retreated after every shot, leaving McCoughtry and Bingham to grab offensive rebounds.
But the Terps were able to respond with an 11-4 run a few minutes later to make it a one possession game, a spurt that was actually keyed by their defense. They started in a 2-3 zone that was rather ineffective as Louisville was able to find the seams and get open jumpers. But once they switched to man-to-man, the Cardinals’ shots were falling with less frequency.
McCoughtry’s jumper at the buzzer gave Louisville a 30-25 advantage heading into the break. The Cardinals opened up the second half with a 10-5 run to grab a 10-point advantage, and Maryland was never able to get closer than six points the rest of the way.
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