EVANSTON, ILL. — With five seconds left and the No. 5 Maryland women's basketball team assured of perfection in the Big Ten Conference, coach Brenda Frese approached Brene Moseley near the bench during a stoppage in play Sunday for a long embrace.
Frese had turned to Moseley with starting point guard Lexie Brown in foul trouble, and the redshirt junior delivered in a 69-48 victory over No. 25 Northwestern that pushed Maryland into exclusive company.
The Terps (27-2, 18-0) became the first team to go unbeaten in regular-season Big Ten play since Purdue went 16-0 in 1998-99; the Boilermakers later won the national championship. Maryland also joined Ohio State (1984-85) as the only programs to finish 18-0 in a Big Ten regular season.
"I'm just thankful for everything," Moseley, a Paint Branch graduate, said after the Terps' 21st consecutive win, matching a single-season school record set in 1988-89. "I mean, these girls are special. To be able to work with them every single day is just a blessing. This is just icing on the cake, but we've got a lot more we want to do. This is just the beginning for us."
Moseley's contributions during the Wildcats' Senior Day at Welsh-Ryan Arena included a season-high-tying 18 points. But just as meaningful was her careful management of the second half. After Maryland committed 10 first-half turnovers, Moseley limited the Terps to just three more as they pulled away with a decisive flurry capped by her 3-pointer with 14:59 left in regulation, giving the Terps a 41-31 lead.
Another layup and pull-up jumper from Moseley made it 47-33, and the lead never threatened to dip below double figures in Maryland's 27th consecutive victory over a Big Ten opponent, a streak dating to 2007.
Sophomore center Brionna Jones (Aberdeen) added 14 points and a game-high 13 rebounds for her 11th doubledouble this season and the 12th of her career. Sophomore Shatori Walker-Kimbrough had 11 points, a career-high nine assists and eight rebounds as she flirted with the Terps' first tripledouble since Alyssa Thomas did it three times last season.
"It's kind of unbelievable to go 18-0 in our first season in the Big Ten," Jones said. "I think the work that we put in over the summer just really showed in the season that we had this year.
The Terps limited Northwestern (22-7, 12-6) to 23 percent shooting in the second half (7-for-31) and a span of 8:06 without a field goal. During that stretch, the Wildcats missed 11 shots and got their only points at the free-throw line.
Sophomore forward Nia Coffey led Northwestern with 14 points, five rebounds, four assists and two blocks in its quest to secure its first NCAA tournament berth since 1997. The Wildcats had won eight in a row, the next-longest streak in the Big Ten, entering Sunday's regular-season finale.
"Maryland, I don't think it would surprise anybody if they made another run in the NCAA tournament like they did last year," Northwestern coach Joe McKeown said. "Every time you try to stop them inside, they make a shot outside. When you come out to guard them, they would get the ball inside. They're really balanced."
The Terps gained the upper hand several minutes into the first half with six straight points on jump shots by junior Malina Howard, Walker-Kimbrough and Brown for a 16-9 lead. McKeown called timeout, and the Wildcats got eight points in a row from Coffey to tie the game at 19 with 8:23 left.
Consecutive 3-pointers by redshirt senior guard Laurin Mincy and junior guard Chloe Pavlech returned the lead to Maryland, which played more than seven minutes of the first half without Brown because of foul trouble. Brown picked up her third personal foul less than four minutes after halftime and wound up playing 24 minutes, her fewest in a conference game this season.
"Just so proud of this group, when you talk about making history with a team that had a lot of unknowns going into the season," Frese said. "New conference, all new teams, and they continue to separate themselves every day. It's going to be a team that I'm always going to remember when you talk about something I've never done, and they guided it every step of the way."