After a day of several upsets and closely-fought contests in the Women’s ACC Tournament, the final game of the ACC Women's Basketball Tournament Quarterfinals proved to be a dominant display of basketball. ACC Player of the Year, Alyssa Thomas, had a team high 18 points going 7-13 from the field. Brene Moseley added 13 more off the bench, and in their first game of the ACC Tournament, third-seed Maryland cruised to an easy 70-58 victory over sixth-seed Virginia.
The game was never in question. Maryland jumped out to a 22-9 lead against Virginia early on in the game. This led to a 40-20 lead into halftime. Maryland (26-4, 12-4 ACC) pretty much cruised after the half. Virginia (22-10, 9-7 ACC) never managed to put the game seriously in question. The highest lead was 25; Virginia never managed to cut it to single digits. The score really does not dictate how dominant Maryland really was. Maryland shot 7-10 from the three, good for 70%. They won the rebound battle 43-21, and had 9 blocks. Maryland looked impressive and dominant from start to finish.
Maryland will play seventh-seed Wake Forest, who surprisingly beat second-seeded Miami 81-74 at 1:30PM on Saturday on ESPNU. Maryland is now the highest seeded team still in the field for the tournament. It also helps that Maryland was able to give the starters valuable time resting for the game tomorrow. That is one of the most valuable things in your conference tournament. If there was anything that could worry me about Maryland’s chances of winning, it would be one thing-- turnovers. Maryland committed 24 turnovers today. Even though the game was a blowout, that is still a lot of turnovers for a team with high aspirations like the Terrapins. Even with that minor issue, you have to feel comfortable about the Terrapins making a run at winning another ACC Championship this year.
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