Maryland Terrapins Basketball Teams Win Exhibition Games
By Cory Forsyth
The Maryland Terrapins men’s and women’s basketball teams opened up their season with exhibition games in College Park.
Men’s Basketball
Mark Turgeon’s team stepped onto the court at the Xfinity Center for their first exhibition game of the season on Saturday against the San Francisco State Gators.
With a team full of young talent and core veteran players, fans as well as head coach Mark Turgeon are excited to see this team play.
Maryland’s young talent didn’t disappoint.
Freshman guard Melo Trimble scored 19 points and Dion Wiley added 16 to lead the Terps to a 86-52 win.
Coach Turgeon spoke highly of Trimble after the exhibition.
"“He just had a lot of composure out there. He’s such a better defender than I thought I recruited. He really made some nice plays defensively. He’s just got a lot of game. He’s a real good player.”"
The Terps shot 54.5 percent from the field while shooting 51.9 percent from long range. This didn’t help the Gators who only shot 31 percent from the field and 20 percent from three point range.
All active players for the Terps were given playing time in this game. Bench play will be big for the Terps this year. Maryland got 33 points from their bench and will look to go small and big at certain points during games this season.
Maryland will have their final exhibition game against Bowie State next Saturday at noon.
Women’s Basketball
Brenda Frese and her tenth-ranked Terrapins ran away with the game against the Golden-Beacon Lightning with the entire team participating in the scoring effort.
All 12 Terps scored in the exhibition with sophomore Shatori Walker-Kimbrough leading the way with 15 points and nine rebounds.
"It was a really nice game for us,” head coach Brenda Frese. “To be able to come out and get some jitters out of the way, obviously play a lot of combinations, especially for our freshmen to be able to get that experience. I saw a lot of really good things and some things that we can work on to be able to improve. Defensively, I thought we picked it up the second half and were able to run in our transition and I like how we shared the basketball.”"
Maryland owned the paint, outrebounding the Lightning 65-27 and outscoring Goldey-Beacom down low, 52-4. The Terps also scored 40 points off 27 turnovers.
This year’s team has been picked to win the Big Ten and is ranked in the top 10 for the third straight season.
Coach Frese has built this program into a winner and the Terps will look to continue the success of last year’s Final Four run by making their first season in the Big Ten, well, a big one.
Maryland welcomes the University of the District of Columbia on Saturday, Nov. 8 for a 5 p.m. exhibition at the XFINITY Center.