No. 10 Indiana Women's Basketball Plays at Maryland Wednesday Night
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — No. 10 Indiana women’s basketball, which moved up four spots in Monday’s Associated Press poll, the highest it's been since the opening week of the season, is gearing up to begin its two-game road trip this week.
The Hoosiers play at Maryland (12-8) Wednesday night. The Terrapins were blown out at Penn State by 36 points on Sunday afternoon.
In the Big Ten Coaches Preseason Poll, Maryland was picked to finish fourth behind Iowa, Ohio State and Indiana. The latter three are tied for first atop the Big Ten with 8-1 records. The Terrapins, however, are in the middle of the pack at 4-5, tied for fourth place with seven teams above them. They’ve gone 0-4 versus ranked teams so far this season, losing by 98 combined points.
Indiana has lost to two ranked foes, too, losing by 59 points total. The difference, though, is that Indiana has been able to beat those upper-to-middle teams in the conference, sometimes handedly, whereas Maryland has struggled to do the same.
The advantage for the Terps is they are 9-1 at home, and Indiana has never won at College Park in six games, dating back to 2015. Indiana’s Elite Eight and Sweet Sixteen teams both lost by four points or fewer.
Maryland junior guard Shyanne Sellers, the team’s leading scorer this season at 15.4 points per game, is projected to start Wednesday night against the Hoosiers. Sellers exited nine minutes into the Penn State game with an injury to the knee, and is listed as day-to-day. Sellers, an All-Big Ten First Team member last season, has undergone spurts of turnovers, reaching six-plus four times. Despite shooting less than 30% from three, Sellers is the go-to scorer. Maryland’s other two starting guards average roughly 12 points.
Depth could be at the forefront of Wednesday's matchup, especially if Sellers is unavailable. Indiana sophomore Lexus Bargesser is projected to start for the third consecutive game in place of an injured Sydney Parrish. Last weekend, Indiana head coach Teri Moren reaffirmed that Parrish is game-to-game and didn't provide an update on the senior's return time.
Following Parrish’s injury two weeks ago, Indiana won at Purdue two days later, and the Hoosiers heavily relied on their five starters, who all played 30-plus minutes. Maryland handed considerable minutes to seven players at Penn State when Seller went down.
"Their depth wore us out," Maryland head coach Brenda Frese said Sunday about Penn State. "They go 10-to-12 deep. Once we had (Sellers) go out, then Allie [Kubek] went out for a chunk of time with her ankle. We were severely limited with the amount of minutes that people were having to play. You saw that fatigue take place ... through their depth and our lack thereof."
Wednesday’s matchup at Maryland tips-off at 7 p.m. ET and will air on Peacock.
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