Kinda Fitting that on Kids' Day at Comcast, it was two of Maryland's youngest players who led their teammates to victory this afternoon over the Loyola Greyhounds from neighboring Baltimore, 69-56.

Today's performance was hardly one of the young team's best efforts. A couple of good runs, but otherwise plenty of inconsistency, turnovers and fouls. Against a stronger opponent, these might very well have cost Maryland the game. Fortunately for Coach B's "kids," the Greyhounds (though they played hard) didn't have the size or skill to steal this game from the bigger and more athletic Terrapins.

That size-talent differential was most evident in the play of Tianna Hawkins and Diandra Tchatchouang, who scored 22 and 20 points, respectively. We're hard-pressed to recall the last time two Maryland freshmen both hit the 20-point mark in the same game. Since the BasketCases' statistical analyst has the day off, we're just gonna have to guess that it was sometime in the 2005-06 season.

Regardless of when it last happened, these two freshmen both impressed us again today, as they have practically every time they've taken the floor this season. Tianna is strong and athletic, and has an exceptional ability to be in the right place at the right time to pull down a rebound or to receive a pass and finish with a lay-up. Today, in addition to her game-high scoring, Tianna also led the Terps with 10 rebounds. No one else on Maryland (aside from these two rookies) hit double figures today, either in scoring or in rebounding.

As for Diandra, she can shoot the 3 (4 from behind the arc this afternoon!), drive to the basket, post up or make any number of other moves that you just don't expect . . . from a freshman. The maturity of her game is well above average. While neither of these two young ladies arrived in College Park with much fanfare, they are certainly gaining new fans with every game they play!

After today's match-up, we enjoyed the Rebounders' first "Social" of the season. Appropriately, all the players introduced themselves and their families to the large crowd. Coach B spoke about this young team's development and how they have great chemistry. We've seen signs of that on the court, and we saw it today off the court as well, watching them interact (particularly how they enjoyed teasing each other) in Heritage Hall at the Social. Coach B told us that her team needs to develop more consistency . . . so that they bring the same intensity they brought last Thursday against Minnesota to every game, for all 40 minutes. As today's game showed, they aren't there yet -- but we're sure they'll get there!

Next up for the Terps is a road trip -- all the way to Towson, Maryland (!) -- on Thursday evening, to take on the Tigers of Towson University. Hopefully the Terps can get their first road win of the season, as well as develop more of the consistency that Coach B spoke about, since the challenges of ACC play are getting ever closer with each passing day.