Maryland coach Brenda Frese warned during the preseason that it may take some time for her Terrapins to jell this fall.
She is far from the only coach to heed that same warning.
With a record number of players transferring this past offseason, college basketball programs all over the country are dealing with more new faces and the challenge of developing chemistry in a short period of time. But with only one returning starter and nine new players, the Terrapins can’t take too long to figure out how to play together. No. 17 Maryland’s schedule features 12 contests against ranked opponents, including powerhouse programs South Carolina, UConn, Notre Dame and Baylor in the first 12 games.
The first of that gauntlet is Friday against the defending champion and No. 1 ranked Gamecocks. The Terrapins won their season opener at George Mason 88-51 on Monday, but Friday’s contest will obviously raise the stakes and give Frese and her team an idea of where they stack up.
“I want to see what we’re made of,” Frese said before the season began. “We’ve got a team that we’ve got to figure out sooner than later. Winning by 50 isn’t going to prepare us for what lies ahead in conference play.”
South Carolina cruised to the NCAA championship last season, losing only two games before the tournament and winning each March Madness contest by an average of 23 points, including a 15-point triumph over UConn in the title game. Maryland will likewise be the Gamecocks’ first test, as Dawn Staley’s squad defeated East Tennessee State, 101-31, in its lone contest this season.
“I think it’s going to help us this year a lot and build us for March and get us ready. We always have learning lessons in those big games,” said sophomore guard Shyanne Sellers, who was the Big Ten’s Sixth Player of the Year last season. “We look at them as challenges. No one really knows what to expect from us. It’s kind of to our advantage. We can surprise a lot of people, I feel like.”
Frese, in her 21st season at the helm of the Terrapins and 16 years removed from the program’s only national championship, said the feeling leading up to this season reminded her of when she took over the team in 2002.
The only returning starter on Maryland is Diamond Miller, and only three others on this year’s roster were with the team last season. In total, Frese brought in nine newcomers — five transfers and four freshmen — to help replace the five players who transferred out, including stars Angel Reese and Ashley Owusu.
“It definitely reminds me of the first time I took over here at Maryland with so many new players, nine new faces,” Frese said. “But at the same time for our staff and our team, it’s been a lot of fun gelling those pieces. We’ll definitely be a work in progress, because with so many new players you’ve got to continue to find those roles and the identities.”
After Friday’s test against South Carolina, Maryland has two matchups against midmajors before traveling to No. 18 Baylor on Nov. 20. The game against No. 9 Notre Dame is on Dec. 1, just three days before the Terrapins’ Big Ten opener against No. 22 Nebraska. Then the final nonconference challenge comes a week later against No. 6 UConn.
Frese said “patience” will be vital, both for herself and her players, amid that difficult stretch of contests.
“You understand the nonconference is to really build for conference play and postseason,” she said. “When we play in those kind of competitive games, that many top-10 and top-25 matchups that we have on the schedule. It’s just going to bode well, win or lose, to prepare us for Big Ten play and postseason.”
It won’t get much easier during conference play, though. Eight of the 12 ranked opponents on Maryland’s schedule are Big Ten foes: No. 22 Nebraska twice, No. 14 Ohio State twice, No. 4 Iowa twice, No. 11 Indiana and No. 25 Michigan.
Tip for Friday’s game at the Xfinity Center against South Carolina is 6 p.m.
• Jacob Calvin Meyer can be reached at jmeyer@washingtontimes.com.
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