STANFORD, Calif. — Every season-ending loss is difficult, but Maryland women’s basketball found a particularly devastating way to lose Friday night.
The No. 10 seed Terps allowed the second-largest comeback win in NCAA Tournament history, giving up a 20-point lead to No. 7 Iowa State in a 93-86 loss in the first round of the Portland 4 regional at Stanford’s Maples Pavilion.
Maryland’s four-guard lineup had no answer for freshman center Audi Crooks, who had 40 points on 18 of 20 shooting. The Terps tried fronting Crooks with smaller defenders, but the Cyclones were able to lob balls into the 6-foot-3 freshman for easy buckets.
Crooks also wore down the Terps (19-14) in the second half. She drew nine fouls, and all five of Maryland’s starters finished with at least four fouls.
A unanimous first-team All-Big 12 selection, Crooks posted the fourth-most points in a game in Iowa State history and the most in an NCAA Tournament debut in the past 25 seasons.
The Terps overcame Crooks’ performance in the first-half with torrid shooting, hitting 60% of their shots. Maryland led 50-30 with 1:28 left and by 16 at halftime, 52-36.
But the Cyclones went to a zone defense in the second half, with Crooks staying near the basket instead of chasing players near the perimeter, and the Terps shot just 34% after halftime.
“Loved our attack mentality from the tip,” Maryland coach Brenda Frese said. “But [ISU coach Bill Fennelly] is one of the best coaches out there and we knew they were going to make adjustments.”
Frese had been an assistant coach under Fennelly at Iowa State from 1995 to 1999, but the programs had never met before Friday.
“We talked at halftime that we were hopeful that we would continue to shoot that well, but that’s not who we’ve been all season,” Frese said. “So we talked about crashing the glass and being able to move on offense, and for whatever reason we weren’t able to do that.”
The Terps were outrebounded 22-13 in the second half and had just three offensive rebounds.
Meanwhile, Iowa State (21-11), which entered with the ninth-best 3-point shooting percentage in the country (.373), got hot in the second half. The Cyclones needed just seven minutes in the third quarter to tie the game at 59 and took the lead for good with 6:28 to play. They made 7 of 12 shots from long range in the second half and finished the game at 41% from deep.
“Audi’s a great talent,” Terps junior guard Shyanne Sellers said. “We were willing to give that up. What we couldn’t afford was for them to get hot from 3, which they did in the second half. That was really the nail in the coffin.”
The biggest comeback in tournament history is 21 by Texas A&M over Penn in 2017.
“I’ve watched enough film on Iowa State where they came back because of their 3-point shooting,” Frese said. “I continued to try to explain in timeouts that this is a 3-point shooting team and we have to stay the course with our defense. But the credit goes to Iowa State. They were the more disciplined team in the second half, running their offense, staying out of foul trouble.”
Maryland couldn’t have asked for a better start. The Terps made 6 of 7 shots from deep and scored 33 first-quarter points to match their best scoring quarter of the season, previously set in November against Niagara.
Maryland’s hot perimeter shooting was led by an unlikely source. Redshirt junior Allie Kubek had made just 13 3s all season, but she was 7 of 8 from behind the arc against ISU and finished with a career-best 29 points in her first NCAA Tournament game.
“We had conversations before today’s game about confidence,” Kubek said. “I had a couple lulls in the season, but the coaching staff and my teammates instilled confidence in me every day, and today I just felt hot so I just kept shooting it. Every time I caught it I thought it was going to go in.”
The junior transferred from Towson before the 2022-23 season but tore her ACL in the preseason and missed the entire year. She came in averaging 8.4 points a game, with a previous career high of four made 3s.
Sellers, a first-team All-Big Ten guard, added 19 points, seven rebounds and six assists for the Terps, but it wasn’t enough as Iowa State broke Maryland’s 18-game winning streak in the Round of 64. Fellow All-Big Ten guard Jakia Brown-Turner, an NC State transfer, was held to six points on 2 of 9 shooting.
The Terps had been at least a No. 5 seed for the last 16 of those first-round wins, including last year’s run to the Elite Eight as the second seed, but they entered this tournament in a much different position.
Maryland lost two WNBA first-round draft picks (Diamond Miller and Abby Meyers) off last year’s team and needed a late push in the Big Ten Tournament to guarantee a 14th straight NCAA Tournament appearance.
Iowa State, meanwhile, will face No. 2 seed Stanford, a 79-50 winner over No. 15 Norfolk State, in the second round Sunday.
While the Cyclones started three freshmen, the Terps had three graduate students in the starting lineup and must reload if they hope to continue their postseason streak.
