Maryland ready for NCAA Tournament clash with Iowa State

Fans of the Maryland women's basketball team aren't used to traveling for the NCAA Tournament.

However, this year is different.

The 10th-seeded Terps will travel to California where they will play Iowa State for their first-round opener on Friday.

WJZ was with the team in College Park for their final practice before winging it out west on the flight to San Francisco.

Maryland is headed to its 14th-consecutive NCAA Tournament. But, usually they are one of the top regional seeds, garnering a homecourt advantage in the early rounds.

This year, the Terps are the underdogs with an unusual tournament circumstances.

"We knew we could get there," forward Bri McDaniel said. "We just hit a rough patch, trying to figure it out after we lost our leading scorer from last year (Diamond Miller). So, we just had to figure out the little kinks and we figured it out and now we are at the tournament."

"Just understand this isn't something you take for granted," head coach Brenda Frese said. "It's called March Madness for a reason and we want to be able to take advantage of it and hopefully we play our best basketball."

If Maryland wins on Friday, they will likely play host Stanford in the second round.