Terps Take on Big Ten Media Day

Another women’s basketball season in the Big Ten is on the horizon, so head coach Brenda Frese and four of her student-athletes traveled to Illinois for the conference’s media day on Wednesday. 

Maryland is fresh off a 25-8 2024-25 season campaign that saw the Terps win a pair of NCAA Tournament games and make their 21st Sweet 16 in program history. Maryland has reached the Sweet 16 mark in four of the past five seasons and are expected to make another big splash this season.

“I think it shows the legacy of Maryland, the recognition that Coach B has, that she can always get her teams to perform,” Saylor Poffenbarger said. “I think it just shows that, but at the same time, we feel like we fall into that culture. Getting preseason recognition obviously helps, but at the same time, it doesn't mean anything. We’re continuing to work towards the goals that we have.”

It’s another season of high expectations for the Terps, who were picked to finish second in the Big Ten by the conference’s coaches and media panel. 

“We have a great conference,” senior Bri McDaniel said. “So we’re able to understand that yes, we are a good team, but we also have to beat out a lot of great teams. So just being able to not let that cloud our heads, but use that as a chip on our shoulder and just make us grind throughout the season will be big for us.”

Frese explained her balance of celebrating last year’s success while acknowledging areas for growth to the BTN panel:

“We have a lot more scoring pieces,” Frese said. “I think the thing I'm most excited about is that I think we're going to be able to do a lot more defensively. We didn't have that with injuries last year, so I thought that slowed us in some areas. So, we're going to be able to pick up full-court again. We're going to be able to have a lot of different wrinkles on the defensive end. We should be a really great up-tempo team that's going to be able to score a lot of points.”

Two of the Terps named to the 10-player Preseason All-Big Ten Team — seniors Yarden Garzon and Kaylene Smikle — appeared on Big Ten Network to talk about the upcoming quest. 

Garzon is one of two new key transfers that Frese and her program landed in the offseason. She had a stellar career at Indiana over the past few seasons, including becoming the Hoosier’s all-time leader in made 3-pointers. After talking with coach Frese, she knew the next chapter of her legacy would bring her to College Park. 

“Our first phone call, it was a great call,” Garzon said. “She tried to learn a lot about me. I asked her about her family and what she's about. Obviously, she's one of the best coaches out there. The next day, I was on campus already, and got to meet everybody, and everybody was so honest and open with me, so it just felt like the right place.”

A key talking point of media day was the smooth transition and meshing of the new Terrapins to an already stacked roster, one that Garzon is already finding her footing in. 

“I feel like right now, I'm trying to learn the system, what the coaches need from me, what the team needs from me.” Garzon said. “I know that I'm trying to develop my game to a lot of things like new directions, being a better defensive player off and on the ball, and add a little bit of mid-range to my game. Yeah. I’m trying to make my teammates better. I feel like at the end of the day, that's what makes good teams great.”

Garzon played against Smikle’s Terps last season, and Smikle’s excited to be able to play alongside Garzon instead of against her. 

“It really just makes it easier,” Smikle said. “Now you can’t always help off me. You have to watch for Yarden and her three-point shooting. If they do come to me, I'm going to pass it to her. It's just made the game easier for me, honestly.”

The other key transfer, Oluchi Okananwa from Duke, was brought in to boost the Terps’ defensive efforts in 2025. She led the Blue Devils in steals a season ago and was named the 2024 ACC Sixth Player of the Year. 

“You have to have a great staff, and it starts there,” Frese said of her transfer acquisitions. “You have to be able to understand your roster, what you have, what you need, and then it's got to break the right way. So for us to be able to secure them right when Yarden went into the portal, as well as Oluchi. Those were two areas that we needed. Yarden’s 3-point shooting, someone who understood the league after being here for three years. And then Oluchi, a dynamic backcourt, athletic, someone who’s able to pick up full-court, has tons of energy on both sides of the ball. Two phenomenal additions to go with the experience that we already had off of this Sweet 16 roster.”

A huge part of that team was its leading scorer, Smikle, who averaged a team-high 17.9 points per game. She transferred in a year ago from Rutgers and it paid off immensely for both her and the Terps. 

“I'm capable of hard things,” Smikle said of what she learned with Maryland. “The coaches really told me to come in and be myself, like, don't change who I am, just play the flow of the game. Maryland’s a transition team and I thrive in transition, so it wasn't really a hard transition coming to Maryland, because that's just how they play.”

Having been in similar shoes, she was able to aid Garzon’s transition into her new program and told BTN about her message to her new teammate:

“I was honest with her,” Smikle said. “I'm not going to tell her a lie. I told her this is a winning program. We all come in and practice playing hard every single day. We all have the same goal, and she's a very hard worker. Coming here, she blended in really well with this team, and the sky is going to be the limit for us.”

Despite her incredible season with Maryland a year ago, Frese mentioned how pleased she’s been with Smikle’s continuous growth. 

“We've really challenged her in other areas of her game,” Frese said. “She wants to play at the next level and do it for a long time. So, adding that dimension to be a high-level defender for us, being able to understand the game from assist-to-turnover ratio and make others around you better as well when you're so elite. Those are all areas I love. Any weakness she has, she wants it to be a strength, and so she continues to just show us each and every day how hard she wants to work to become better.”

Smikle wasn’t the only Terp to praise their new blend of talent, nor how easily the new faces fit in with the returning talent. 

“It's been great seeing everybody click and mesh well together,” McDaniel said. “I feel like with this team, we never miss a beat. So I'm super excited to see how far we get this season and how well we mesh well together in these big games. I'm just super excited for this year.”

McDaniel and Smikle were an unstoppable duo last season and Smikle made sure to shout out her teammate on the podium:

“She’s very intense,” Smikle said. “McDaniel’s a dog. That's my partner in crime on the floor. We're going to be aggravating. Our press break is coming back. We have a lot of great pieces for our defense.”

But there’s plenty of talent and depth beyond the four that made the trip to Media Day. Smikle was asked who she's seen stand out in practice, but wasn’t able to pick just one Terp.

“I don't have one particular person,” Smikle said.” I feel like we're going to have a balanced attack and we're going to have a lot of depth. So you can't just focus on one person. You're gonna have to focus on everybody on the roster.”

It’s a perfect blend of talent, character and passion — one that’s ready to take the Big Ten by storm in 2025-26. 

“We're super excited with the team that we have,” McDaniel said. “We have different backgrounds and different experiences from different places, so we’ll be able to mesh them all together and make a good team this year. We did a great job last year with how far we got, but we’re already  thinking about all the good times and good moments that we'll have this year.”