From Cats to Birds

The No. 3-ranked Maryland women's basketball team welcomes the Temple Owls to Comcast Center Sunday afternoon at 2 o'clock. Temple comes to town sporting a 4-5 record; winning their last contest 74-34 over Kent State. Dawn Staley, who is in her 8th year as head coach, has led the Owls to four Atlantic-10 championships. The latest came in the 2006 season. These two teams met last year in Philadelphia, with Temple giving the Terps all they could handle. Maryland came out victorious 77-66 as Laura Harper led the way with 17 points.

In that game, Temple used an 18-1 run to take a 62-58 lead with just 5:38 left to play. Good news for the Terps is that the player who sparked the rally for Temple, Kamesha Hairston, has graduated to the WNBA. Senior guard Ashley Morris, who did not score in last year's contest, currently leads the Owls in scoring with 17 points per game. Another face Maryland will have to deal with is Lady Comfort, as the 6-foot 2-inch senior is almost averaging a double-double for the season with 11 points and nine rebounds a contest.

The Owls were able to force 21 Terrapin turnovers in the December '06 match-up and will undoubtedly be looking to do some of the same things that caused headaches for the then-No. 1 team in the country. Temple will not be able to win at Comcast Center by out-shooting the Terps, as they only shoot 41-percent from the field and average just over 60 points per game. In stark contrast, Maryland shoots at just over 50-percent with a 79.8 points per game average.

Maryland will be coming in sky high off of their demolition of the Northern Iowa Panthers 91-37 on Friday night. Five Terrapins logged double-digit point efforts as Marissa Coleman (22 points & 12 rebounds) and Harper (10 points & 11 rebounds) chalked up double-doubles. Kristi Toliver had an "off-day" in comparison to her normal "Agent Two-Zero" standards with 12 points and seven assists. Toliver did become just the ninth player in school history to accumulate at least 400 assists for a career.

A couple more milestones were reached in Friday's drubbing; Coleman moved into top 20 all-time in Terrapin scoring with 1,167 points and Ashleigh Newman played in her 117th consecutive game in a Maryland uniform. Maryland's win, which featured a margin of 54 points, was the biggest win of the season, and largest since a 55-point victory at Loyola last December.

Sunday's game will end a stretch of 14 games in 31 days, as the Terps will not play again until December 20 when they visit James Madison in a homecoming game for Toliver. Toliver played at Harrisonburg (VA) High School in the shadow of JMU. The upcoming rest is going to be greatly deserved as the team has battled sickness and numerous top-flight opponents en route to a 12-1 record.

The action begins with a 2 o'clock tipoff at Comcast Center Sunday afternoon. We will have the pregame show starting at 1:40 on WMUCsports.com. The Terps look to improve to 13-1, while Temple looks for a signature win to jump-start their season.