Maryland Athletic Director Damon Evans admitted there was a sense of urgency to get Brenda Frese some help this offseason. Her Terrapins women’s basketball team had just posted its fewest wins since 2003-04, losing in the first round of the NCAA tournament for the first time in her 22 seasons as coach. The struggles of the most successful program in the Big Ten over the past 10 years, however, seem to have come with a silver lining.
The early exit from the postseason allowed the focus to be placed elsewhere, specifically the transfer portal, from which Frese signed seven players and quickly reconstructed her roster. And not only did Frese and her staff have more time to recruit without a postseason run, they had name, image and likeness (NIL) dollars available for the first time through the “One Maryland Collective.”
“We really had to ramp up our efforts to meet these needs as the marketplace changed,” Evans said. “And that’s what we did.”
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Frese added: “You see the difference.”
The university announced in September the creation of the donor-funded collective to maximize NIL opportunities for all 20 of the school’s varsity sports. The football and men’s basketball programs already had collectives in place, but women’s basketball was operating with zero NIL dollars to entice potential recruits. The transfer portal is the new way of life in the NCAA, with athletes able to transfer and immediately play at another institution, and the promise of NIL money has played a huge role since players became eligible to be paid in July 2021.
Evans declined to specify how much money was available in the women’s basketball pool this offseason, but the results can be seen through Frese’s latest additions:
- Kaylene Smikle, a 6-foot guard from Rutgers who was named to the 2023 all-Big Ten second team
- Christina Dalce, a 6-foot-2 forward from Villanova who was named Big East co-defensive player of the year
- Sarah Te-Biasu, a 5-5 guard from VCU and the reigning Atlantic 10 player of the year
- Amari DeBerry, a 6-6 forward from Connecticut and a 2021 McDonald’s all-American
- Isimenme Ozzy-Momodu, a 6-3 forward from Gulf Coast State and a junior college third-team all-American
- Saylor Poffenbarger, a 6-2 guard from Arkansas and a 2023 all-SEC freshman team selection
- Mir McLean, a 5-11 guard from Virginia and a 2020 McDonald’s all-American
The additions offset a substantial exodus that included outgoing transfers Faith Masonius, Riley Nelson, Hawa Doumbouya and Summer Bostock. Brinae Alexander, Jakia Brown-Turner and Lavender Briggs all exhausted their eligibility.
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“Our staff has always been one of the hardest working staffs in the country,” Frese said. “I thought this year we did a much better job being able to adapt and trying to kind of find a better system for recruiting out of the portal. I’ve had some tough offseasons now that things have changed with the transfer portal. This one was the hardest I’ve ever been through.”
The transfer portal went live March 18, four days before the Terps lost to Iowa State in the first round of the NCAA tournament. That period is always tricky as teams prepare for their tournament opponents while still trying to pay attention to the portal. The early exit allowed the Maryland staff to fully dive into the portal, working 14 to 16 hours per day. The staff constantly checked in on the portal, at least three times per day, to see whether anyone new had entered. The goal was to be one of the first to reach out. The process included watching film, deciding on whether there was a fit, talking to others who know the player and scheduling a 48-hour on-campus visit.
“All hands on deck,” recruiting coordinator Lindsey Spann said. “You’ve got to get in as soon as possible just because of how fast a lot of this goes for a lot of these student-athletes.
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“[The collective], it’s a huge, huge help for us.”
Maryland has faced criticism in recent years for the number — and quality — of players who have left the program, most notably Angel Reese, who was named the NCAA tournament’s most outstanding player after she led LSU to the 2023 national championship in her first season after transferring. On the flip side, incoming transfers Abby Meyers, Alexander, Briggs and Elisa Pinzan helped the Terps advance to the 2023 Elite Eight. The 2021-22 squad that featured transfers Chloe Bibby, Katie Benzan and Mimi Collins was one of the most offensively prolific teams in school history.
Last year’s roster lacked depth, size and athleticism, and the Maryland staff says it believes those deficiencies have been addressed. Frese and Spann both said this was a year when the players available in the portal very much matched up with the team’s needs.
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The quality of the players available certainly helped, but the biggest factor may have been having NIL funds to compete in recruiting those players.
“The challenge was just that identifying what was taking place out there,” Evans said. “What was the market for, specifically, women’s basketball players? How many NIL dollars were they starting to get paid? … A year or so ago, the amount of money that women’s basketball players were getting … pales in comparison to what they’re getting today. So making sure that we understood how rapidly this thing was evolving and growing and making sure with Brenda that we’re able to identify, okay, how much money do we need to raise in this collective for you to meet the needs that you have?
“So that was really the big challenge. We went from zero to 100 so fast, but we were able to do it. And that allowed her to go out and get what I think is one of the best transfer portal classes in the country.”
Frese noted this was the first time she had ever dealt with agents for players.
“[It’s] a whole new reality of that element that no one’s trained us for,” Frese said. “I have a lot of experience in a lot of areas, but this whole new space between agents and NIL and all of it, never thought I would be in this space, but here we are.”
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