The road ended in College Park, Md., for the Utes.
After a season in which the Utah women’s basketball team won both the regular season and tournament of the Mountain West Conference, the Utes finally met their match in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. The No. 1 seeded Maryland Terrapins beat the No. 9 seeded Utes 71-56, thanks to red-hot shooting by the Terps’ star players Marissa Coleman and Kristi Toliver. Coleman led the Terps with 18 points and a career-high 18 rebounds, while Toliver logged 17 points.
“Well, just congratulations to Maryland,” said head coach Elaine Elliott. “It was obviously a well-played game and we wish them well as they move on.”
Kalee Whipple led all scorers with 23 points, thanks to three 3-pointers, while Morgan Warburton finished with 17 points in her final collegiate game.
After a hot start by the Utes in which they made six of their first nine field goals from the floor to build a 15-8 lead, it was Maryland all the way. The Terps went on a 14-3 run that lasted until the middle mark of the first half, putting them up 22-18, a lead they would never relinquish.
Coleman made three straight jumpers at one point. She finished the first half with a double-double on 12 points and 10 boards.
“I just think Maryland started hitting more of their shots and we started missing more of ours,” Whipple said. “It just kind of turned around right there. I felt like we came out for the second half and fought pretty well.”
Maryland made its key run at the end of the first half. After a three-point play at the 4:43 mark by Warburton, the Utes wouldn’t score the rest of the half. The Terps scored 12 straight points to push their lead to a commanding 44-28 advantage. Utah never got the scoring margin under 14 in the second half, as Maryland was able to hold onto its lead, thanks to 15 second-half offensive rebounds. The Utes were able to keep things from getting out of hand in the second half, however, as the Utes cut Maryland’s shooting percentage from 60 percent from the first half to 22 percent in the second.
Where Maryland really got the best of the Utes Tuesday night was on the boards. Maryland outrebounded the Utes 55-24. Maryland had 25 offensive rebounds on the game. Forward Demauria Liles also notched a double-double, grabbing 18 rebounds to go with 12 points. It was the biggest rebounding deficit Utah had faced all season after being ranked No. 12 in the nation in rebound margin on the year.
Elliott said she felt that the reason for Maryland’s dominance on the boards had to do with the Terps’ athletic advantage over the Utes.
“It’s just pure and simple really, (Maryland’s) strength over us and their physicality,” Elliott said. “We couldn’t change that. We couldn’t grow bigger. We couldn’t grow heavier. That was the difference in the two teams.”
Beating No. 1 seeded Maryland would have been tough in any situation, but the home crowd couldn’t have helped matters. The Terps were riding a 35 home-game winning streak, and senior stars Coleman and Toliver had only lost at home three times their entire careers. The two all-ACC players didn’t disappoint the 10,065 Terrapin fans in attendance, as they won their 65th home game of their careers.
Maryland will take on the No. 4 seeded Vanderbilt Commodores in the Sweet 16 next week, while Utah will say good-bye to Warburton, Katie King and Deanne Stevenson and take to the floor next season.
Associated PressThe director of basketball operations, Sarah Levrets, hugs Kalee Whipple, as Morgan Warburton and Halie Sawyer react to Utah?s 71-56 loss against Maryland during the second-round women’s NCAA college basketball tournament Tuesday night.
Associated PressKalee Whipple drives to the basket against Maryland’s Marah Strickland. Whipple lead all scourers with 24 total points in the Utes loss to Maryland.