COLLEGE PARK — As the lone senior on the Maryland women's basketball team, Laurin Mincy was the center of attention in a pregame ceremony on senior night Thursday honoring a resilient career that included overcoming a torn ACL as a junior.
Then the redshirt shooting guard authored a career scoring performance with 28 points to lead the fifth-ranked Terps to an 83-72 victory over Indiana that has them one game from perfection in the Big Ten after a 20th straight win.
Maryland (26-2, 17-0) can become the third team to complete a regular season undefeated in the Big Ten, and only the second team to go 18-0 in the conference, with a victory Sunday at No. 25 Northwestern. A victory also would match the longest single-season winning streak in program history, set in 1988-89. The Terps' most consecutive wins is 24, bridging 2005-06 and 2006-07.
"I didn't have a senior night in high school, so obviously I wanted to come out here and play hard," said Mincy, who spent the better part of that year recovering from another torn ACL. "I had a lot of family and friends and fans here, and I wanted to go out with a bang."
The announced Xfinity Center crowd of 5,601 gave Mincy, who played the entire game, a standing ovation as the final seconds ticked off the clock minutes after she made a 3-pointer to eclipse her previous career high of 25. Her two foul shots produced her final points and gave the Big Ten regular-season champions a 79-64 lead with 2 minutes, 19seconds remaining in regulation.
Junior forward Malina Howard added a season-high 16 points on 7-for-10 shooting with six rebounds and no turnovers in Maryland's 26th consecutive win against a Big Ten opponent since 2007.
Sophomore guard-forward Shatori Walker-Kimbrough also had 16 points, and sophomore point guard Lexie Brown finished with 14 points, a game-high seven assists, five rebounds and two steals.
"Having a senior like Laurin, it's just really special to send her out that way," Howard said. "She's put so much into the program. She means a lot to all of us. We all love and care about her, so just to have a teammate that you care that much about, you want to send them out on the right note."
A 10-2 flurry to open the second half put Maryland in front 57-41, with 14:57 to play. Brown began the charge with a three-point play and a fast-break layup, and Mincy capped it by controlling a loose ball underneath the basket and scoring. Mincy's 3-pointer with 13:41 to play made it 60-44, but the Hoosiers went on a 3-point barrage.
Indiana (14-14, 4-13) made four of five from beyond the arc, with sophomore guard Karlee McBride (18 points) sinking three and scoring on a layup to trim the margin to 62-58 with 8:57 to play.
Howard countered for the Terps by collecting a pair of offensive rebounds and scoring both times, and when Walker-Kimbrough beat her defender to the basket for a layup, Maryland was ahead 70-60.
The lead dipped below double figures twice more, but Maryland made six straight foul shots in the final minutes to stay unbeaten at home and sweep the Hoosiers.
"I think what will always be in my heart is through her career, the adversity she had to face," Terps coach Brenda Frese said of Mincy.
"It wasn't easy. You talk about five years, three surgeries. She battled. Oftentimes young people anymore don't want to fight through tough times. She's a living example of why she has the utmost respect of the staff, her teammates, because she put her head down, and she went to work."