Todd Carton of SB Nation's Testudo Times summarized a pair of impressive performances in Maryland's win over Florida State last night (boxscore).
Florida State's star senior center / forward Natasha Howard certainly held up her end of the bargain scoring 35 points while shooting 13-17 and pulling down 11 rebounds to register her [10th] double-double of the season. And how did Maryland's senior star Alyssa Thomas fare? Well, 22 points on 9-17 shooting. Twelve rebounds, including eight in the second half. Oh, and twelve assists. Yes, she did it again - her fourth triple double of the season and sixth of her career both of which are one short of equaling the NCAA record...Whether by design or happenstance, Thomas opened the game in the mindset of a distributor picking up four assists on Maryland's first seven baskets while scoring only one herself...The Seminoles hit a three point jumper out of the timeout but the Terps responded with another 9-0 run with four of those points coming from Thomas... It looked as though the half would come to a fitting end with a Rutan three closing the Terps' scoring with thirty seconds to play but a Maryland steal let Thomas end the half with two free throws. As the Terps went to halftime with a 53-35 lead, I put myself on triple double watch as Thomas had 12 points, 8 assists and 4 rebounds.
Not at all to take away from what Howard did last night in getting another double-double, but it's hard to continue coming up with words for Thomas' dominance. Analyst Stephanie White recently compared Thomas to WNBA star Tamika Catchings, which is such lofty praise that it's almost hard to repeat it but they were remarkably similar as college players in terms of their playing style ratings (comparing junior seasons since Catchings only played 17 games in her senior year) and that's actually an easier comparison to make than the standard LeBron James analogy as we think about her as a draft prospect.
For more on potential draft prospects, check out our 2014 WNBA Draft prospect watch storystream.