Women’s Basketball Concludes Season at the NCAA Tournament First Round

Friday, March 18

College Park, MD

5 p.m.

University of Delaware

24-8,15-3CAA

102

Maryland

22-8,13-4Big Ten

Delaware

Maryland

102

Photo by: Jeff Fannon

Women’s Basketball Concludes Season at the NCAA Tournament First Round

3/18/2022 9:12:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – The University of Delaware women's basketball fell 102-71 to Maryland (22-8) Friday afternoon in the NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Tournament First Round inside Xfinity Center in College Park, Md. The Blue Hens (24-8) conclude the season posting back-to-back 20-win seasons, winning its third CAA championship and earning a trip to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the 2013 season.

"Like we just told our team, obviously this is not the outcome that we wanted, but we don't want this one game to take away a phenomenal season," said head coach Natasha Adair. It hurts, as it should, but as their coach, I couldn't ask for a better crew. I couldn't ask for a better group for sure of seniors, leaders, but just a phenomenal team."

Maryland opened the game scoring four straight points in the opening 48 seconds. Tyi Skinner put Delaware on the board with a jumper at the 9:08 mark, 4-2. The Terrapins went on to build a nine-point advantage with 2:53 left. Skinner and Jasmine Dickey worked together to score the Blue Hens next four points to trim the deficit to five, 22-17, with 2:22 remaining. Maryland then pushed their lead to double digits to close out the quarter, 27-10.

Determined to still be in this game, Delaware used a 9-4 spurt, kickstarted by a Jewel Smalls triple and capped by a Dickey jumper, pulled the Blue Hens within eight points (36-28) with 4:01 remaining. Maryland pushed their lead back up to double digits, as high as 13 points, before Dickey's jumper sent the Blue & Gold into the break trailing by 10 points, 49-39.

Maryland turned up the intensity in the second half and never looked back. The Terrapins watched its lead balloon to a game-high 31 points twice in the fourth quarter, including the final points coming off the hands of Emma Chardon, to settle the 102-71 final.

In her final game in the Blue & Gold uniform, Dickey led all scorers with 31 points (12-of-32 FG, 6-of-7 FT), her sixth of the season, and 10 rebounds, to post her 19th double-double on the year. Skinner chipped in 10 points while Paris McBride dished out five assists and nabbed three steals in her final game in a Blue Hen uniform.

Ashley Owusu finished with 24 points and six rebounds to help Maryland advance to the round of 32. Diamond Miller followed with 23 points while Katie Benzan, Angel Reese and Chloe Bibby scored 17, 15 and 11 points, respectively.

Adair continued, " Well, they say Blue Hens fight, right? Hens fight. That's what we are, we're the fighting Blue Hens. We're resilient. This is a group that will never quit. This is a group that has never quit. You saw them compete to the very end. You saw them flying around defensively because they're competitors. They're winners. Regardless of what the scoreboard said, we were going to give everything that we had. So I'm super proud of this team. I'm super proud of their fight, their resiliency. But again, you're not here if you don't fight. You're not here if you aren't a competitor. Again, this game obviously didn't go the way that we wanted it, but we can walk out of here very tall with our head high and very proud of who we are and what we've accomplished."

Delaware graduates a senior class of Ty Battle, Dickey, Tee Johnson, McBride, Lizzie Oleary, Maddie Sims and team managers George Class-Peters and Mollie Patmore. We are thankful for their dedication to the University of Delaware women's basketball program.

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