Brinae Alexander wants to build homes someday.

The All-SEC transfer from Vanderbilt will pursue a master’s degree in project management at Maryland the next two years and build her figurative new home in College Park.

Alexander is one of nine newcomers, including five transfers, all coming to Maryland to build something special alongside four returnees off last season’s 23-9 Sweet Sixteen squad. Welcome to college basketball in 2022.

Maryland head coach Brenda Frese had two starters — Katie Benzan and Chloe Bibby — complete their COVID-extended eligibility, and five more transfer, including Angel Reese to LSU, Ashley Owusu to Virginia Tech and Mimi Collins to NC State.

“It’s a lot of change, especially for our fans, a lot of new names,” the coach admitted. “But the transfer portal isn’t going away. It is what it is, and the name of the game is you have to adapt and adjust.”

And just as that portal taketh away, it also giveth. Along with Alexander, the Terrapins have added 6-foot-1 senior guard Lavender Briggs from Florida; 6-foot senior guard Abby Meyers, the Ivy League Player of the Year from Princeton; 5-foot-8 graduate point guard Elisa Pinzan from South Florida, and 6-foot-2 junior Allie Kubek from Towson.

All-Big Ten guard Diamond Miller and versatile Faith Masonius are back, both coming off knee surgeries. The two seniors haven’t joined the team in full offseason workouts yet.

Sophomores Shyanne Sellers and Emma Chardon also return. Sellers was the Big Ten Sixth Player of the Year and a All-Freshman selection, while Chardon appeared in 17 games for the Terps last season and then played at the FIBA U20 European Championships this summer.

“I do like with the experience we lost, the experience we gained,” Frese said. “You take an Ivy League Player of the Year like Abby Meyers and Elisa Pinzan, who has been at South Florida for four years and played against the UConns and Stanfords; Brinae Alexander, Lavender Briggs and Allie Kubek, they give us a ton of experience. And that helps the freshmen.”

Those freshmen, part of Frese’s 15th top-10 recruiting class in 20 years, are 5-foot-9 guard Gia Cooke from Bishop McNamara; 5-foot-10 Brianna McDaniel from Kenwood Academy in Chicago; 6-foot-3 forward Mila Reynolds from South Bend (Ind.) Washington High, and 6-foot Ava Sciolla from Pennsbury High in Pennsylvania.

“The energy has been through the roof as this team is forming their identity,” Frese said of summer workouts. “It’s going to be a really dynamic group and a lot of fun. We just got them on campus the middle of June and we’re filling in the pieces like strength and conditioning and skill work. I’m not a big believer as a coach of doing practices until your kids are in shape.”

The Portal Is “Overwhelming”

As Frese shapes up her players and reshapes the team, those five Terrapin transfers are a small sampling of a changing college landscape. There were 1,143 Division I women’s players in the transfer portal in mid-July. The number is twice that on the men’s side. Not all will find homes where they had hoped when the merry-go-round stops.

Maryland’s quintessential quintet did, especially the 6-foot Alexander, who led Vanderbilt with 15.2 points per game. She was also second in 3-point shooting (36 percent), steals (1.9) and assists (1.4) and fifth in rebounds (3.5). She did everything but pick up and mop the arena after games for a 16-19 Commodores team that was 13th in the SEC with her as the focal point for opposing defenses.

Brinae Alexander
Brinae Alexander (Photo Credit: Courtesy of Vanderbilt Athletics)

“Brinae is more of slasher [type scorer],” said Frese. “She’s very versatile, can work off the bounce, has a nice mid-range, game, can rebound and plays with toughness defensively.”

She also has smarts befitting a Vanderbilt grad, and that certainly extends to basketball where she made meticulous machinations for her move to Maryland.

“I have always lived in Tennessee, but also thought this was a great area,” she explained. “I have an uncle in D.C. on my dad’s side and had visited before, but really didn’t know that much about (Baltimore/Washington, D.C.).”

When contemplating sailing away from the Commodores — after graduation, of course — Alexander had already begun keeping tabs on the Terps. First came following former AAU foes like Reese and Owusu on social media, and then former SEC competitor Briggs, who transferred in during the 2021-22 season.

A psychology major at Vanderbilt, Alexander ran the gamut of emotions as she entered the portal during the NCAA Tournament.

“At first, I was really excited but then you get anxious because you don’t know what schools will be interested. You don’t know if the schools that previously recruited me out of [high school in Tennessee] were still going to be interested.”

But Alexander soon realized there was much more to consider.

“Being in [the portal] for a while, hearing from schools and coaches I had built relationships with that had moved on to other schools, I just heard from a lot of people,” she said. “It was overwhelming. My phone was blowing up after the first week.”

Seems like a good problem but for a full-time student trying to wrap up her degree, well, it’s tough keeping up. She estimated she had more than 30 serious inquiries from schools at all levels. Smaller schools were trying to hit the lottery with a big-time transfer, and some bigger schools, still involved in the postseason, were slower to come calling.

For some transfers, the decisions and destinations seem natural. Meyers, a product of Potomac, Md., is coming “home” for her final season.

“Not only am I from Maryland, but I grew up going to the women’s basketball games at the amazing Xfinity Center,” she said. “I have tremendous respect for the program and all it has accomplished under Coach Frese’s leadership. I want to help continue to build the winning legacy.”

Briggs, who came aboard in January after shutting down her season at Florida because of injuries, said Maryland coaches and teammates were her reason for coming.

“I believe we can do something special together,” she said.

Portal Problems And Possibilities

Alexander has always wanted to do something special, too. Beyond basketball, someday she hopes to build luxury, custom homes. She and her mother frequently toured famous Tennessee homes and neighborhoods when she was growing up.

“I’ve always loved houses and looking at them,” she said. “Eventually I want to have my own company to build them.”

And here Alexander was after last basketball season looking for a new home for her continued education and her game. Her list of possible landing sites included Alabama, Duke, Georgia Tech, Texas and the two it came down to, Ohio State and Maryland. All are perennial winners, and that was another common component on her list.

But as enticing as the transfer portal can be for a young athlete, there’s also much work, she said.

“You had to keep up with everyone [who made contact]. You don’t want to burn any bridges in the recruiting process because you never know,” Alexander said. “You could end up on someone’s staff [as an assistant]. Someone may become a head coach someday. I was trying to reach out to everyone but there were so many emails, calls, text messages.”

Alexander said one of the things that helped her was knowing exactly what she wanted, something she learned while at Vanderbilt.

“It wasn’t a horrible experience, but I knew what I wanted in the next chapter of my life,” she said. “I wanted step up to the next level ready to compete and play in the NCAA Tournament.”

In addition to coaches, Alexander reached out to players who had transferred or just players she knew that could give her advice.

“In the end, this experience really gave me confidence. I wasn’t as bad as I thought I was,” Alexander added.

She also found a resource in Vanderbilt assistant Kevin DeMille, who had previously coached in this region at George Washington. He knew people at Maryland and made a call to the Terrapin basketball office for Alexander.

“I was still nervous because [Maryland] had to be interested in me, too,” she said. “They have to want me to play for them. And you just don’t know. Then Coach Frese called and I was just like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is Brenda Frese on the phone.’ I really think talking to her, that first conversation, everything felt so right. I hadn’t even met her in person yet, but I was thinking this is everything I want in a head coach.'”

Frese gets that a lot.

Alexander didn’t commit that day, though, in her first week being in the portal. The NCAA Tournament was still being played and, in fact, Alexander wouldn’t hear from Texas until the tournament was over in early April.

She wanted to perform due diligence to make the right decision for her two remaining years of eligibility. (A ruptured Achilles tendon her sophomore season saw Alexander use a redshirt year unrelated to COVID.)

“COVID complicated things because of the extra eligibility,” she said of the current state of the portal. “Schools had players returning for extra years and so they don’t have the scholarships they would normally have. Then you’re talking to a school, and they get a commitment from someone else so you have to keep looking. It’s tough.”

Alexander was down to just Maryland, her favorite, and Big Ten rival Ohio State. On the same day Alexander had a scheduled call with Frese in late April, Ohio State called her an hour before, and the Buckeyes told her they had taken a commitment from another recruit.

“I called my mom,” Alexander recalled, “and she said this was the universe weeding out the other options, this is where you said you wanted to go, it was so much like home. Go for it.'”

Maryland announced her decision on May 1, and then two days later added Kubek, a deadly 3-point shooter who also immediately felt at home in College Park. Pinzan, who signed in April, was the first addition after the postseason departures. She averaged 9.3 points and 5.3 assists at South Florida last year and, as an All-American Conference performer, can help immediately at point guard.

Apparently Frese can build and rebuild, too. Alexander and Briggs, premier players on so-so SEC teams should be big-time scorers and leaders right out of the box.

“At Florida and Vanderbilt they were leading scorers and wanted the responsibility,” Frese said. “Lav has been here all summer working and they’re both leaders. With their experience and that of Abby, ‘E’ and Allie, that’s what we need given what we lost. It allows the freshmen to transition, and we’ll see which [freshmen] are ready the quickest.”

Alexander can play all over the floor. And will. In fact, there’s such a commitment to versatility and the ability to switch screens at every position on defense that the Maryland roster doesn’t even list positions this preseason. Frese’s position is clear. She said her staff was “rejuvenated,” and certainly up to the challenge of rebuilding the roster on the fly this offseason.

“This wasn’t our first rodeo,” laughed Frese, who is entering her 21st season at Maryland.

“We went from two years ago named Coach of the Year and one of the most rewarding years I’ve ever coached to last year probably one of the toughest years I’ve ever coached,” she added.

Frese personifies traits she looks for in recruits. She will never speak ill of her players, past or present. Coach of the Year is a team and staff honor to her.

A basketball team can be a fragile ecosystem and it often only works to the highest level when everyone is pulling in the same direction like that 2020-21 team. Perhaps there is a hint of explanation about last season in Frese’s words regarding this coming season.

“The exciting thing is there’s a rejuvenation with the spirit of these kids, the energy,” Frese said. “They want to get in the gym and work. They want to be great.”

They want to build something. Together.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Maryland Athletics

Mike Ashley

See all posts by Mike Ashley. Follow Mike Ashley on Twitter at @lrgsptswrtr