National Champion Terps Begin Title Defense on Nov. 10
8/18/2006 8:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Aug. 18, 2006
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COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- The NCAA Champion Maryland women's basketball team begins its title defense on Nov. 10, 2006, when it opens the season at Middle Tennessee State, announced head coach Brenda Frese and the Atlantic Coast Conference on Friday. The Terps will not have an easy road in its attempt to repeat as national champions as eighteen teams on the schedule earned postseason bids last year, including 15 NCAA Tournament teams.
"This team welcomes the challenge of having to defend their NCAA Championship. The ACC is the toughest conference in the country and our non-conference slate will prepare us for those battles," said fifth-year head coach Brenda Frese. "Nothing can better prepare us than playing 18 teams that experienced postseason play last year. Those teams, including our conference opponents and opponents like Michigan State and Arizona from power conferences, know what it takes to get back there.
"It's going to be an exciting year for our team, and all the fans we gained from our championship run last year will have more opportunities to see them play with the national TV exposure we're getting this season," continued Frese.
An exhibition game on Nov. 3 against LTL All-Stars will give new and old fans a sneak peek at the 2006-07 team. The season officially tips off on Nov. 10 at Middle Tennessee State, an NCAA Tournament squad last year. The Terps' official Comcast Center debut as national champions is on Sunday, Nov. 12 against local rival George Mason.
A three-day tournament Nov. 17-19 in Comcast Center features NCAA Tournament teams TCU and George Washington, who both reached the second round of the tournament. Traditional Pac-10 power and Frese's alma mater Arizona rounds out the four-team pool. The Nov. 19 clash to close out the round-robin tournament features the first meeting between the Colonials and the Terps since 1994.
The Terps will escape to the Bahamas for the Junkanoo Jam, Nov. 24 and 25 where they face Gardner-Webb in the first round. The championship game on Nov. 25 will be against Mississippi or Northwestern. Both Gardner-Webb and Ole Miss were postseason participants last year.
Back on the mainland, Maryland makes its first-ever trip to Marshall on Nov. 29, before returning home for two games against UC-Santa Barbara (Nov. Dec. 2) and Siena (Dec. 4). The Gauchos earned a WNIT bid and two seasons ago played in the NCAA Tournament, nearly upsetting Notre Dame.
A homecoming for Frese takes her back to her home state Iowa when the Terps take on North Iowa on Dec. 6 for the first of three road trips. Final Four Most Valuable Player Laura Harper will play in front her hometown crowd on Dec. 10 at Temple. The Owls finished in the top 20 in the Associated Press poll last season, while the Panthers played in the postseason WNIT.
The annual Terrapin Classic begins on Dec. 29 and goes through Dec. 30. It features NCAA Tournament participants Liberty and Marist, with the Terps taking on UNC-Greensboro in the first round of play. Maryland will be featured in the late game on both nights.
After the New Year, Maryland opens ACC play with NC State visiting on Jan. 3. The Wolfpack were one of six conference teams to earn an NCAA Tournament bid.
In the Terps' first national TV appearance of the season, they host the Big Ten's Michigan State on CBS on Jan. 6 in a clash of two top 20 teams. MSU made a run to the Sweet 16 last season and was the NCAA Runner Up in 2005.
Maryland continues its run to capture an ACC title uninterrupted for the rest of the season, beginning with games at Miami (Feb. 1) before the national title game rematch at Duke on Jan. 13. The game will be televised nationally on Fox Sports Net.
In the first of two regular-season meetings, Maryland hosts Virginia on Jan. 19 for a regionally televised game, then hosts Wake Forest on Jan. 21, before hitting the road to Clemson for the only meeting between the teams on Jan. 25.
On Jan. 28 on ESPN2, the Final Four and ACC Championship game rematches featuring North Carolina and the Terps will take place in Comcast Center and will be the only time the teams play each other during the regular season. Maryland was the only team to defeat UNC last season, topping the Tar Heels in overtime on their home court on Feb. 9, then upsetting the top-seeded Heels in the Final Four.
The second half of the conference slate begins with a trip to Georgia Tech on Feb. 1. A regionally televised home game on Feb. 4 against Boston College is the first of two meetings, followed by another home matchup against Virginia Tech on Feb. 8. Both BC and VT, the newest members of the ACC, earned NCAA Tournament bids last year.
The Terps close out the season with four televised contests. Maryland will look to begin its history in the new John Paul Jones Arena on the campus of the University of Virginia the way they closed the chapter on University Hall. The Terps won the last-ever meeting against UVA in University Hall with its first win in the building since 1992. That meeting will take place on Feb. 11 and will be televised on the ACC Regional Sports Network.
Florida State will have its only shot against the Terps in an ESPN2 televised game on Feb. 15 in Tallahassee, Fla., with the Terps returning home on Feb. 18 for its final home game of the season against Blue Devils, which will also be televised nationally, by Fox Sports Net.
The regular season comes to a close at BC on Feb. 25, also a regionally televised matchup.
The ACC Tournament begins on March 1 in Greensboro, N.C., where the Terps will be looking for their first conference title since 1989. The tournament concludes on March 4 where the winner will also be awarded the conference's NCAA Tournament automatic bid. The NCAA Tournament begins on March 17 and 18 with the national champion being crowned on April 3 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio.
The Terrapins return all five starters and 98 percent of the scoring from last year's championship squad that won a school-record 34 games. Among the returnees are preseason Wade Trophy candidates Marissa Coleman (Cheltenham, Md./St. John's College [D.C.]), Shay Doron (Great Neck, N.Y./Christ the King), Crystal Langhorne (Willingboro, N.J./Willingboro) and Kristi Toliver (Harrisonburg, Va./Harrisonburg).
For ticket information, call the Comcast Center Ticket Office at 1-800-IM-A-TERP.
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