Thursday, February 14, 2008

O Say Can Did You See . . . Boston College sophomore point guard and popular "American Idol" contestant Ayla Brown singing the National Anthem at Comcast tonight? It's not often in sports that a member of the opposing team is invited to perform the Star Spangled Banner, but last week, Coach B (always a gracious host) called Ayla and asked her to sing the Anthem. It was clearly a thrill for Ayla and her BC teammates . . . as well as for the Terps' fans, who gave her a loud, appreciative ovation.

Unfortunately for the Eagles, however, that was the highlight of their evening. The Terps proved tonight that sometimes . . . though your opponent may sing softly . . . it's better to carry a Big Strick. Thanks in part to a career night by freshman starter Marah Strickland, Maryland put the game out of reach pretty quickly, ending things with a 78-51 rout.

After several games with below-average 3-point shooting performances, the Terps were particularly impressive tonight from beyond the arc, connecting on a whopping 11 of 22 treys! Marah, who led all scorers with 20 points, hit all five of her three-point attempts! Senior Ashleigh Newman (who breaks the Maryland record for consecutive games every time she steps onto the court) had an impressive night off the bench, finishing with 15 points, including 3 three-pointers of her own. Harp added a double-double (13 points and 10 boards) to her stats, as well as the 187th blocked shot of her career, which broke Maryland's record for blocked shots -- a record that had stood for 28 years! Wow! [Note to Rhet: order more basketballs . . . all these records are depleting the supply.]

For the 6,700 fans who chose to spend their Valentine's Evening at Comcast Center, Ayla and the Terps provided an excellent night's entertainment. But for the biggest laugh of the night, the BasketCases want to give a shout out to the folks who run the "Who Am I" quiz on the Jumbotron, in which a baby picture of a Maryland player or coach is shown on the screen along with biographical clues. Tonight's quiz featured a picture of an adorable African American girl, along with the biographical information of . . . the also adorable, but clearly not African American . . . and not female . . . Coach Daron Park!

But the good news is that the Jumbotron quiz was just about the only thing that went wrong this evening for the Terps. The BasketCases and the rest of the Terps' fans left Comcast having enjoyed a very Happy Valentine's Day.

Photo Credit: DC BasketCases

4 Comments:

At 8:34 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Strickland has a great stroke. She can really knock down the 3s. I see a parallel with the men's team where Grevais is the ballhandler and leading scorer and Eric Hayes is a great 3 point shooter. Like Hayes, Mariah tends to be shy and avoid the spotlight, but both have great skills and just need to build up their confidence. The counterpart on the women's team for Vazquez is obviously KT.

 
At 8:49 AM, Blogger BasketCases said...

To the "Other" Anonymous (whose comment we just deleted)--

We applaud the fact that you have taken an interest in our country's electoral process. However, as you can see from our blog, we try to focus on the basketball and usually avoid blogging about anything that could be construed as partisan or related to a particular political candidate.

So we ask you and all our readers to please refrain from posting comments that could be construed in that way.

Thank You!

--BC

 
At 2:42 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Okay ladies. The Terrapin Flu has obviously not yet left my brain although I'm feeling much better. What was the factual error in the article about Coach Park? And that Jumbotron thing also threw me for a loop. Like a ditz, I turned to my friend and said, "I didn't know Diane coached at Westminster also." And what a game! Go Terps. Beat Duke!

 
At 9:31 PM, Blogger BasketCases said...

"What was the factual error in the article about Coach Park?"

Hint: check Coach Park's W-L record!

-- BC

 

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