Maryland women look to ‘reload’ with nine newcomers, only one returning starter

COLLEGE PARK — This season is far from Brenda Frese’s first rodeo.

The longtime Maryland women’s basketball coach has nearly seen it all as she enters her 21st season at the helm. But the 2022-23 season may actually be uncharted territory for Frese and the Terrapins. Now in the age of an unfettered transfer portal and NIL deals in the NCAA, Maryland enters a new campaign with more questions than answers. 

The No. 17-ranked Terrapins have only one returning starter (Diamond Miller) and just four players who were on last year’s roster. A total of nine newcomers — five transfers and four freshmen — will be relied upon to extend Maryland’s 17-year streak of making the NCAA Tournament. 

“You see all the changes we had. But being a school like Maryland, all we’ve been able to do is continue to reload,” Frese said at the Terrapins’ media day Thursday. “We’ve been in these situations before. It seems like every single time when we’ve been through this recruiting process we continue to get the right players who fit us here at Maryland.”

The reason Frese hit the transfer portal hard this summer was mostly out of necessity. The Terrapins had a mass exodus shortly after they lost to Stanford in the Sweet 16. Five players transferred out, including stars Angel Reese and Ashley Owusu. Reese, an Associated Press third-team All-American last season after averaging a double-double, joined legendary coach Kim Mulkey at LSU, while Owusu, Maryland’s second-leading scorer in 2021-22, is at Virginia Tech. 

“We have a lot of good transfers leave, but we also had a lot of good transfers come in,” Miller said. “… Every year is a new team, regardless of who stays or goes.”

Rather than rely on a large incoming freshman class, Frese brought in five experienced transfers — all of whom averaged over 9 points per game last season — to pair with Miller (13.1 points) and the 2022 Big Ten Sixth Player of the Year Shyanne Sellers (7.7 points). 

The best newcomer is graduate senior Abby Meyers, who was the Ivy League Player of the Year at Princeton last season after scoring 17.9 points per game. The other transfers are Brinae Alexander (Vanderbilt), Elisa Pinzan (South Florida), Lavender Briggs (Florida) and Allie Kubek, a Towson transplant who tore her ACL this preseason. 

“Coming to Maryland, it’s a fresh start,” Meyers said. “We have our own team expectations, but there aren’t [outside] expectations for how great we’re going to do. We just want to come out there, play our best ball and prove people wrong.”

Maryland kicks off its season Nov. 7 at George Mason before welcoming defending national champion and No. 1-ranked South Carolina to College Park on Nov. 11.