Box Score NEW YORK, N.Y. – The fifth-ranked Maryland women's basketball team went toe-to-toe with top-ranked Connecticut for 40 minutes, but came up just short and fell 83-73 in the Maggie Dixon Classic at Madison Square Garden Monday night.
Junior Brionna Jones tied her career-high 24 points to lead the Terrapins (11-1). She went 12-for-14 from the field. Shatori Walker-Kimbrough added 14 points, and sophomore Kristen Confroy hit four threes to score 12. Nine Terrapins scored in the top-five matchup and senior Chloe Pavlech dished a career-high nine assists.
"Nobody wants to lose, we're one of the most competitive teams out there," head coach Brenda Frese said. "Proud of how we responded punch for punch. If you look at UConn and the games they've played in, that knockout punch comes and you don't recover. I love the confidence and the swagger that we played with. There was no fear and I thought we competed really, really hard for 40 minutes.”
UConn (10-0) had won its previous 46 games by double digits and most of those contests had been decided well before the final few minutes. But with a minute left at Madison Square Garden, the Huskies were clinging to a four-point lead over the undefeated Terrapins (11-1).
Maryland trailed 40-32 early in the third quarter before scoring 11 of the next 12 points to take a two-point lead Brooklyn-native Brianna Fraser's three-point play with 4:35 left in the period.
UConn closed the quarter with a 15-4 run to go up nine points. The Huskies extended the lead to 59-47, its first double-digit advantage of the game. Maryland rallied within four -- hitting four 3-pointers, the last by senior Tierney Pfirman with 1:10 left that made it 75-71.
The Maggie Dixon Classic is held annually in memory of the former Army Black Knights women's basketball coach. On April 6, 2006, 29-year-old Maggie Dixon died from an undiagnosed heart condition. Over the course of her six months as head coach at the United States Military Academy she led the program to unprecedented heights; the Black Knights played in their first Patriot League Championship and Dixon led her team to their first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance.
Current Maryland director of athletics Kevin Anderson hired Dixon at Army.
Maryland played in the first-ever women's basketball game at Madison Square Garden. The Terrapins defeated LSU, 77-74, on Jan. 6, 1979.
Next, the Terrapins will open Big Ten play at Illinois (7-4) on Thursday at 3 p.m. ET. The Terps-Illini game will be streamed live online through BTN Plus and the BTN2Go app.
The Terps will return home to host No. 9 Ohio State (8-3) at noon on Saturday. Maryland will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of the 2006 NCAA Championship at the Jan. 2 matchup. The first 2006 fans will receive a commemorative T-shirt and the current Terrapins will be signing autographs after the game.
The Terps-Buckeyes game will be nationally televised on CBS. For tickets to the Terps' top 10 matchup Saturday, click here or call the Terrapin Ticket Office at 1-800-IM-A-TERP.
Maryland's matchup vs. Ohio State will open their home slate of Big Ten games. The Terrapins went 18-0 to win the Big Ten regular season title last year, then topped Ohio State, 77-74, last March to win the Big Ten Tournament title as well.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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