There are moral victories, and then there are statement performances. On Monday afternoon in Paris, the No. 20 Maryland Terrapins found themselves staring down a blowout against the top-ranked South Carolina Gamecocks. But instead of folding on the international stage, Maryland delivered a second-half surge that put the rest of college basketball on notice, spearheaded entirely by the sheer brilliance of Addi Mack.
Maryland ultimately dropped its 2026-27 season opener 101-93 at Adidas Arena, but the final score only tells half the story of a wildly entertaining afternoon in France.
A Nightmare Start in the City of Light
From the opening tip, the gap between the preseason title favorites and the rest of the nation was glaringly apparent. South Carolina’s towering, impossibly long roster—featuring just one player listed under six feet—came out swinging. The Gamecocks buried their first seven field goals and knocked down their first eight free throws, immediately forcing Maryland onto its heels.
The Terps struggled to match the Gamecocks’ blistering pace early on. Turnovers quickly snowballed into transition points, with South Carolina dominating the fast-break battle 32-19 and converting Maryland mistakes into 25 points off turnovers. Head coach Brenda Frese, opening her 25th season at the helm, threw the kitchen sink at the No. 1 team in the country.
“We had plan A, B, C, D, and E for South Carolina,” Frese admitted after the game. “You saw different presses that we wanted to run, as well as our zone. So, just mixing it up on them… trying to keep them off sync on the offensive end.”
Despite the game plan adjustments, the Terps walked into the locker room facing a massive 28-point halftime deficit. For a lesser team, the final 20 minutes would have been a mere formality. For this Maryland squad, it was a gut-check moment.
Establishing an Identity
“I think [we had] a choice to make at halftime,” Mack said after the game. “We talked about it in the locker room; we wanted an identity in Maryland basketball, and we didn’t think that we were putting that forward in the first half.”
Whatever was said in that Parisian locker room flipped a switch. With a reenergized, defensive-minded mentality, the Terps began chipping away at the seemingly insurmountable lead — and Mack took absolute control of the floor.
She erupted for a career-high 35 points, putting on an absolute clinic against the nation’s premier defense. Mack shot a staggering 14-of-20 from the floor and caught fire from beyond the arc, hitting 6 of her 10 three-point attempts. Whether she was handling traffic in the paint, pulling up in transition, or distributing the basketball (she finished with a team-high 6 assists), she looked every bit like a player ready to shoulder the load for the Terps this season.
Powered by Mack’s perimeter shooting, Maryland’s offense finally clicked. The Terps shot a highly efficient 43.3% from three-point range as a team, burying 13 triples to keep the comeback pulse beating. They dramatically outplayed South Carolina in the second half, slashing a 28-point deficit to a respectable 8-point margin by the final buzzer.
The Big Picture for the Terps
A loss is a loss, and giving up 101 points reveals defensive rotation and rebounding issues that Frese and her staff will undoubtedly hammer home in practice this week. South Carolina won the rebounding battle 44-36 and shot an eye-popping 50% from beyond the arc themselves. As Frese noted, missed scouting assignments and rotational breakdowns were highly impactful in letting the game slip away early.
However, if you’re a Terps fan watching back home in the DMV, you have to be thrilled with the fight this roster showed. They didn’t roll over against the nation’s deepest team. Instead, they punched back, found their offensive rhythm, and let Addi Mack put the offense on her back in a hostile, international environment.
Maryland (0-1) returns to College Park to host George Mason for their home opener on Sunday at the XFINITY Center. If Monday in Paris was any indication, the Terps have the firepower to hang with anyone, and Addi Mack is ready to put on a show all season long.
