Brenda Frese

Maryland women's basketball coach Brenda Frese is entering her ninth season in College Park, and it might be the most challenging season of her stellar career. The No. 21 Terps will open their season Saturday night against Monmouth with a team so young that it does not include a single senior and a coach who has just been given the ultimate perspective check. Frese and her husband, Mark Thomas, learned just weeks ago that one of their 2-year old twins, Tyler, has leukemia. Tyler has responded well to treatment and the outlook is positive, but Frese suddenly has a great deal more on her mind than she did when the Terps were headed to their first NCAA title in 2006.

Her towering frontline had been cut down to size by a stronger, scrappier Notre Dame team Tuesday night, but that wasn't the real problem facing Brenda Frese. Standout sophomores Alyssa Thomas and Laurin Mincy had combined for only 19 points, but that, too, wasn't what wrecked Maryland in yet another NCAA tournament flame-out. The latest and ultimately greatest obstacle inside PNC Arena for the Terps in their 80-49 loss was very much an old one. As it authored another chapter in Maryland's decidedly undistinguished defensive history, Notre Dame turned a regional final showdown into a glorified layup line, with unimpeded trips to the rim coming almost as easy as its path to a second straight Final Four.

In some ways, Philadelphia-area prep basketball star Laura Harper is similar to the Maryland women's basketball program she signed with recently. Despite the genes of a father who played college basketball and the rich history that comes with two Final Four appearances, both Harper and the Maryland women's program have emerged as late bloomers. The 6-foot-4 power forward seems a typical elite player, ranked as high as eighth among high school seniors after averaging 21 points a game at Cheltenham High School in Wyncote, Pa., last season.

Tianna Hawkins never really was one for Barbie dolls and cartoons. As her mother remembers it, Tianna was barely out of diapers before something a little different had caught her attention. And it certainly wasn't pink or sparkly. "Ever since she was 4 years old, her favorite show was 'COPS,'" Latanya Hawkins said Friday. Seventeen years after her first foray into the world of getaway cars and police standoffs, it's easy to see why labeling Hawkins as Maryland's shooting star these days might cause a bit of confusion.

Good morning --Brenda Frese-- Congratulations. Now all you have to do is win again next season.

OK, I know women's basketball is not my turf, but woman to woman, I couldn't let this one go. Coach Brenda Frese is due to give birth to fraternal twins March 11. First of all, congrats. It's wonderful news, really. Second, what was Brenda Frese THINKING??? These baby hoopsters are due TWO WEEKS before the NCAA tournament? This ain't the NIT, honey. Maybe I'm insane because I planned my Dec. 4, 2004, wedding around the possibility of a bowl game. Maybe I'm even more of a lunatic because I've already done the math to avoid the ridiculous scenario of being rushed out of Byrd Stadium in the third quarter against Florida State in 2011 to give birth to the first Pulitzer Prize-winning shortstop.

Maryland women's basketball coach Brenda Frese said her 2-year-old son Tyler was recently diagnosed with leukemia and is undergoing treatment at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, according to a report in The Diamondback, the student newspaper at the university. "As you can imagine, the initial reaction is pretty traumatic," Frese told reporters at the team's media day Tuesday. Her family's pediatrician diagnosed the disease immediately, which Frese said "pretty much saved his life that day. " Tyler, who has a twin brother, Markus, is doing "extremely well," Frese told reporters.

1 Exams are over: But Brenda Frese (left) and Maryland's women's basketball team return to face a tough test in Old Dominion (1 p.m., Comcast SportsNet). 2 Battle for home field : The Steelers travel to Tennessee for a game that could determine home-field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs (1 p.m., chs. 13, 9). 3 Battle for home field II: The Panthers and Giants meet in the Meadowlands for a game that will give the winner home-field advantage in the NFC playoffs (8:15 p.m., chs. 11, 4)

Maryland's first-round National Invitation Tournament game against Iona on Friday at Comcast Center will be played at 7 p.m. Should the Terps advance, they would play the winner of the Drexel-East Carolina game. "We'll use the WNIT to allow us more practice and game time together to keep improving," Maryland coach Brenda Frese said. "Every day we play together is a chance to get better. We'll use this season away from the 'Big Dance' to fuel our returning and incoming players during the offseason and next year."

COLLEGE PARK - -For every great pass that freshman point guard Dara Taylor made in Maryland's first exhibition game last week, it seemed she made another one that whizzed out of bounds or off a teammate's hands. But in the Terrapins' second exhibition game on Tuesday night, Taylor's passes found their mark and she repeatedly set her teammates up for easy baskets. She finished with seven assists and just one turnover to go along with 14 points in Maryland's 101-43 victory over Division III Catholic.

Women's college basketball Terps ' Frese wins WBCA Region 2 honor Brenda Frese of the Maryland women's basketball team was named Women's Basketball Coaches Association Region 2 Coach of the Year on Thursday. The honor makes her one of eight finalists for WBCA Division I Coach of the Year as voted by her peers. Frese and the second-seeded Terrapins (30-4) will take on third-seeded Texas A&M (24-10) in the NCAA tournament's Raleigh Regional semifinal Sunday at 12:04 p.m. The game will be shown on ESPN.

COLLEGE PARK - As far as memories go, there wasn't much worth remembering the last time Maryland was here, fending off the bright lights of ESPN television cameras as it fought desperately to keep its season going past the NCAA tournament's first weekend. The Terps lost to their Big East visitor (Georgetown), lost a starter to a devastating injury (Diandra Tchatchouang), and lost whatever hopes they had of reestablishing themselves among the NCAA's elite. But lurking under the blanketing disappointment was a glimmer of hope from a freshman whose shooting stroke was always an asset, even if her knees were sometimes a trouble.

For at least a few minutes Sunday afternoon, Louisville coach Jeff Walz sat back leisurely on a dais inside Comcast Center and offered the kind of made-for-TV pleasantries and by-the-book coach-speak that suggested maybe, just maybe, there really was nothing too special about Monday's second-round NCAA tournament matchup with No. 2 Maryland. So much for that. With two answers to questions spaced 10 minutes apart, the tantalizing mentor-versus-mentee narrative that had colored their first meeting three years ago — a 77-60 Cardinals win in the Elite Eight — was at the fore once more.

There were a handful of questions on Lynetta Kizer's mind as her Maryland team bused over from its breakfast at the Marriott Inn & Conference Center to Comcast Center on Saturday morning, arriving for the start of another NCAA tournament not long after dawn. Among them: What time is it? What should I expect from 15th-seeded Navy? How do I make an 11:15 a.m. tip-off feel like it's 7 p.m.? Soon after the morning's first whistle, another arose: What are we doing? The second-seeded Terps' wake-up call came soon enough, but not until early struggles had blighted an opening-round 59-44 win over the Midshipmen.

Brenda Frese's 4-year-old son, Tyler, squirmed in his mother's lap Monday as they waited for word on where Maryland's women's basketball team would be seeded and whom the Terps would play in the first round of the NCAA tournament. If Tyler was impatient, so was Frese. The coach and her players have been eager all season to get back to the tournament and eclipse the memory of last season's second-round loss to Georgetown on Maryland's home court. After waiting for most of the televised selection show, the Terps (28-4)

As the final minutes wound down in sixth-ranked Maryland's 73-58 victory over Wake Forest in Saturday's Atlantic Coast Conference women's basketball tournament semifinals, Lynetta Kizer implored Terrapins supporters at Greensboro Coliseum to rise and join her in celebrating the moment. The senior center certainly was soaking in third-seeded Maryland's 13th trip to the ACC title game, and her performance contributed considerably to her team's fifth straight win and 12th in a row over the Demon Deacons.

Maese is off base in UM comparison I have had a high opinion of Rick Maese's work since he began with The Sun. After reading Thursday's column ["To avoid men's blueprint, Frese will build off title"], I now wonder if Peter Schmuck is really kidding when he speaks about Mr. Maese's youth and inexperience. Maese says Brenda Frese would be wise not to follow the blueprint "scripted by the school's men's program after it won the national championship in 2002." Sounds like something disgruntled fans of the men's team would eat up, doesn't it?

For the past year, ever since Maryland won its first women's basketball national championship in Boston, a clip of either Kristi Toliver or Marissa Coleman has appeared during the introduction to ESPN's SportsCenter. If Toliver, Coleman or someone else from the Terps gets her SportsCenter moment for the coming year, she'll certainly earn it, as the Terps were given a virtual minefield to navigate when the NCAA tournament field was released last night. MARYLAND VS. HARVARD Dayton Regional first round, Hartford (Conn.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- The eighth-ranked Maryland women's basketball team journeyed to one of the more inhospitable venues on its Atlantic Coast Conference schedule Thursday night, and despite building a sizable lead in the first half, the Terps required a late flurry to ensure a 73-56 victory over Virginia at John Paul Jones Arena that was the 300th career win for coach Brenda Frese. Before an announced 3,310 vocal fans, junior forward Tianna Hawkins scored a career-high 26 points on 12-of-13 shooting and collected a game-high 14 rebounds, and sophomore forward Alyssa Thomas had 16 points, 10 rebounds and four assists to deliver Frese the milestone victory in her 10th season at Maryland.

Tyler Joseph Thomas will turn 4 years old Friday, Feb. 17. But perhaps a bigger event will take place at some point in the fall of 2015. "When we hit that milestone we will throw a big party," said North Laurel resident Brenda Frese, the mother of Tyler and his twin brother, Markus William Thomas. Frese is the head women's basketball coach of the No. 8-ranked University of Maryland Terrapins. Her husband and the father of Tyler and Markus is Mark Thomas, a 1988 graduate of Laurel High and member of the school's state title-winning football team of 1987.