Given the restrictions required to manage a pandemic, some players had never glimpsed the shimmering trophy in the hallway of Xfinity Center, the one commemorating Maryland’s lone national championship in women’s basketball. Frese wanted her No. 2-seeded Terrapins to have this image in mind as they departed for San Antonio to pursue their own grand ambitions in the NCAA tournament.
“It was a good little bit of motivation,” senior forward Chloe Bibby said. “We were like, ‘OK, this is what we’re working for.’”
Since that day in April 2006 when she clutched the trophy as confetti fell from the ceiling in Boston, Frese had guided plenty of excellent teams on Final Four quests, but she had never felt compelled to use this particular motivational tactic.