No. 20 Maryland-No. 25 Mississippi State: Lady Terps Fall, 84-55

Brittany Jacobs — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:20:03 -0500

In today's game against Mississippi State, Maryland looked less than stellar. The final score, 84-55, shows that Maryland's youthful spark is no match for the seasoned veterans of Mississippi State.

The Lady Bulldogs (4-0) scored their first bucket 16 seconds into the game. From that point on Maryland (3-1) was never able to regain control of the lead or the game's momentum.

By half time, Mississippi State led by 23 points.

Overall Maryland's play was sloppy, while Mississippi State looked like a championship ready team.

The strong defensive pressure from Mississippi State caused the Terps to turn the ball over 28 times. The Bulldogs capitalized on this, scoring 30 points off of Maryland's mistakes.

Conversely, Maryland looked like they were playing dummy defense all game long. Mississippi State's Alexis Rack was unstoppable and led the Bulldogs, in scoring, with a career high of 43 points. As a team, the Bulldogs shot 44 percent from the floor.

Prior to this game, Maryland was ranked No. 20 in the ESPN/USA Poll, while Mississippi was unranked (but ranked No. 25 in the AP Poll).

After today's performance those rankings are likely to change quite drastically. Maryland will definitely fall out of the top 25, Mississippi State will likely replace them.

Sadly for us Terrapin fans, our young team is skilled, but very inexperienced. They are going to need to learn fast if they want to maintain Maryland's reputation as an ACC powerhouse.

Maryland returns to action on Tuesday against Samford. While Mississippi State takes on No. 13 Texas (ESPN/USA Today Poll) on Thursday in the Paradise Jam Tournament.

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No. 20 Maryland-No. 25 Mississippi State: Lady Terps Fall, 84-55