COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) — Maryland and coach Brenda Frese were among the big winners on Selection Sunday, even if the Terrapins' good fortune remained a bit under the radar.
As the No. 4 seed in their region, the Terps are hosting the first two rounds — and although that's become the norm in College Park, it's not something they can take for granted anymore.
“I don’t know that we would get too comfortable. I think it should give a great confidence level that you know the facility and have practiced all year in it,” Frese said. “You get to sleep in your own beds and you’re not in a hotel room and traveling. You have your ice baths and the resources that you need to be comfortable. We want to use it as an advantage. Doesn’t guarantee you a win, but we want to take advantage.”
A season ago, Maryland made the NCAA Tournament as a No. 10 seed and had to travel, losing in the first round. It was only the third time in the last 13 tournaments that the Terps didn't began at home — and one of those was played in Texas because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Terrapins (23-7) received home court this year, but barely. They were expected to be on the borderline between a No. 4 and a No. 5 seed. Now they'll face 13th-seeded Norfolk State on Saturday. Fifth-seeded Alabama takes on 12th-seeded Green Bay in the other first-round game in College Park.
The Crimson Tide (23-8) narrowly missed hosting, but this is still Alabama's highest seed since 1999.
“Our motto — grit, love, and gratitude — that’s what we’re about,” Crimson Tide guard Sarah Ashlee Barker said. “You want to be the grittiest player on the floor, be tough, you want to love one another with everything you have. And then you want to be grateful. You want to have so much gratitude for the game of basketball and how lucky we are to be able to play Division I basketball."
Green Bay (29-5) comes into the tournament with a 22-game winning streak and Norfolk State (30-4) has won 19 in a row.
On Thursday, Maryland men’s basketball coach Kevin Willard said — a day before his team’s NCAA Tournament opener — that athletic director Damon Evans was probably leaving for SMU. Willard also expressed concerns with the level of support for his program, saying he wanted to spend an extra night in New York with his team to celebrate Christmas, but was told that was too expensive.
Frese was asked about the situation with Willard and Evans on Thursday.
“For Damon, for Coach Willard, those are their own individual things. If they’re evaluating their situations, that’s on them,” Frese said. “I will say that I’ve been here 23 years and the amount of support that I’ve been given from Damon Evans and the whole administration is nothing less than superior. It hasn’t changed the way I’ve been able to do my job in 23 years.”
Green Bay coach Kayla Karius had similar compliments for her school’s commitment to women’s basketball. The Green Bay Press-Gazette reported recently that Karius’ base salary of $265,000 is higher than that of Doug Gottlieb, the school’s men’s coach.
“I think it goes back to our university, our chancellor, our athletic director, and our whole community really prioritizing our women’s basketball program. I don’t really necessarily look at it like myself versus Coach Gottlieb. I have great respect for him and the up and coming coach that he is,” said Karius, who also played at Green Bay. “I think it’s a lot more to be said about women’s basketball and the rise of it and in most recent years how much popularity it’s gained and how it’s on a bigger stage.”
Norfolk State will try to add to the victories two other HBCUs — Southern's women and Alabama State's men — have already earned in the NCAA Tournament this year. Those two teams were No. 16 seeds that won games in the First Four.
“It was just really exciting to see. Those were tough games for them too," Norfolk State forward Kierra Wheeler said. "HBCUs proved that they deserve to be there, and hopefully next year they don't have to be in the play-in game.”
Karius is in her first season as Green Bay's coach. Kevin Borseth took the Phoenix to 13 NCAA Tournaments before retiring last year. After Green Bay won 27 games in 2023-24, Karius has surpassed that.
“She knew we all came back after Coach Borseth left and she was really willing to work with us and meet us halfway on a lot of things,” senior Maddy Schreiber said. “It proved to work out and be very successful for us.”
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This version has been corrected to show Willard’s comments were Thursday.
FILE - Norfolk State guard Diamond Johnson (3) dances and holds up three fingers after the Spartans won their third straight conference championship by defeating Howard in an NCAA college basketball game in the championship of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference tournament, March 15, 2025, in Norfolk, Va. (AP Photo/Mike Caudill, file)
FILE - Green Bay's Natalie McNeal handles the ball during a first-round college basketball game in the NCAA Tournament in Raleigh, N.C., March 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Ben McKeown, file)
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powellsaid Sunday the Department of Justice has served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony this summer about the Fed’s building renovations.
The move represents an unprecedented escalation in President Donald Trump’s battle with the Fed, an independent agency he's repeatedly attacked for not cutting its key interest rate as sharply as he prefers. The renewed fight will likely rattle financial markets Monday and could over time escalate borrowing costs for mortgages and other loans.
The subpoenas relate to Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in June, the Fed chair said, regarding the Fed’s $2.5 billion renovation of two office buildings, a project Trump has criticized as excessive.
Here's the latest:
Stocks are falling on Wall Street after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the Department of Justice had served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony about the Fed’s building renovations.
The S&P 500 fell 0.3% in early trading Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 384 points, or 0.8%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.2%.
Powell characterized the threat of criminal charges as pretexts to undermine the Fed’s independence in setting interest rates, its main tool for fighting inflation. The threat is the latest escalation in President Trump’s feud with the Fed.
▶ Read more about the financial markets
She says she had “a very good conversation” with Trump on Monday morning about topics including “security with respect to our sovereignties.”
Last week, Sheinbaum had said she was seeking a conversation with Trump or U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the U.S. president made comments in an interview that he was ready to confront drug cartels on the ground and repeated the accusation that cartels were running Mexico.
Trump’s offers of using U.S. forces against Mexican cartels took on a new weight after the Trump administration deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Sheinbaum was expected to share more about their conversation later Monday.
A leader of the Canadian government is visiting China this week for the first time in nearly a decade, a bid to rebuild his country’s fractured relations with the world’s second-largest economy — and reduce Canada’s dependence on the United States, its neighbor and until recently one of its most supportive and unswerving allies.
The push by Prime Minster Mark Carney, who arrives Wednesday, is part of a major rethink as ties sour with the United States — the world’s No. 1 economy and long the largest trading partner for Canada by far.
Carney aims to double Canada’s non-U.S. exports in the next decade in the face of President Trump’s tariffs and the American leader’s musing that Canada could become “the 51st state.”
▶ Read more about relations between Canada and China
The comment by a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson came in response to a question at a regular daily briefing. President Trump has said he would like to make a deal to acquire Greenland, a semiautonomous region of NATO ally Denmark, to prevent Russia or China from taking it over.
Tensions have grown between Washington, Denmark and Greenland this month as Trump and his administration push the issue and the White House considers a range of options, including military force, to acquire the vast Arctic island.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that an American takeover of Greenland would mark the end of NATO.
▶ Read more about the U.S. and Greenland
Trump said Sunday that he is “inclined” to keep ExxonMobil out of Venezuela after its top executive was skeptical about oil investment efforts in the country after the toppling of former President Nicolás Maduro.
“I didn’t like Exxon’s response,” Trump said to reporters on Air Force One as he departed West Palm Beach, Florida. “They’re playing too cute.”
During a meeting Friday with oil executives, Trump tried to assuage the concerns of the companies and said they would be dealing directly with the U.S., rather than the Venezuelan government.
Some, however, weren’t convinced.
“If we look at the commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela, today it’s uninvestable,” said Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil, the largest U.S. oil company.
An ExxonMobil spokesperson did not immediately respond Sunday to a request for comment.
▶ Read more about Trump’s comments on ExxonMobil
Trump’s motorcade took a different route than usual to the airport as he was departing Florida on Sunday due to a “suspicious object,” according to the White House.
The object, which the White House did not describe, was discovered during security sweeps in advance of Trump’s arrival at Palm Beach International Airport.
“A further investigation was warranted and the presidential motorcade route was adjusted accordingly,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Sunday.
The president, when asked about the package by reporters, said, “I know nothing about it.”
Anthony Guglielmi, the spokesman for U.S. Secret Service, said the secondary route was taken just as a precaution and that “that is standard protocol.”
▶ Read more about the “suspicious object”
Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters, a move coming as activists said Monday the death toll in the nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 544.
Iran had no direct reaction to Trump’s comments, which came after the foreign minister of Oman — long an interlocutor between Washington and Tehran — traveled to Iran this weekend. It also remains unclear just what Iran could promise, particularly as Trump has set strict demands over its nuclear program and its ballistic missile arsenal, which Tehran insists is crucial for its national defense.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking to foreign diplomats in Tehran, insisted “the situation has come under total control” in fiery remarks that blamed Israel and the U.S. for the violence, without offering evidence.
▶ Read more about the possible negotiations and follow live updates
Fed Chair Powell said Sunday the DOJ has served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony this summer about the Fed’s building renovations.
The move represents an unprecedented escalation in Trump’s battle with the Fed, an independent agency he has repeatedly attacked for not cutting its key interest rate as sharply as he prefers. The renewed fight will likely rattle financial markets Monday and could over time escalate borrowing costs for mortgages and other loans.
The subpoenas relate to Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in June, the Fed chair said, regarding the Fed’s $2.5 billion renovation of two office buildings, a project that Trump has criticized as excessive.
Powell on Sunday cast off what has up to this point been a restrained approach to Trump’s criticisms and personal insults, which he has mostly ignored. Instead, Powell issued a video statement in which he bluntly characterized the threat of criminal charges as simple “pretexts” to undermine the Fed’s independence when it comes to setting interest rates.
▶ Read more about the subpoenas
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters while in flight on Air Force One to Joint Base Andrews, Md., Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
President Donald Trump waves after arriving on Air Force One from Florida, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
