Maryland women’s basketball has embarked on its first cross-country trip of the new Big Ten era. Shyanne Sellers packed compression socks, electrolytes, an Xbox and Madden.

“It’s a long haul on a flight,” the senior guard said, “so it’s just about preparing ourselves.”

She and most of her teammates are focused on listening to their bodies. Previous travel requirements barely compare with the six-hour-plus flight across several time zones needed to visit new Big Ten members on the West Coast. UCLA trekked to College Park on Jan. 26, but Maryland will visit Oregon on Thursday and Washington on Sunday.

With the addition of three new teams from the dissolved Pac-12, the old consistent schedule has become sporadic. And to accommodate the jet lag, Maryland left two days early.

“It just feels like the compression of the schedule is maybe more than it’s ever been,” coach Brenda Frese said.

To prepare, she asks around. Frese knits conversations with other Big Ten coaches and Maryland men’s coach Kevin Willard, who took his team to the opposite coast in early January, into a tapestry she can use. She has also increased her focus on prioritizing recovery.

Two-day preps are swapped out for single days. Massage therapists are put to use each day off. Physical practices are clipped for longer film sessions. Frese says she has never switched up so much in a season before.

Frese can see the academic pressure on her athletes, too. Though an academic advisor travels with them, Sellers, the longest-tenured Terp at four seasons, urged her teammates to finish their homework long before this trip. When the opening whistle sounds and the ball is tipped, the captain wants everyone’s minds as far away from essays as possible.

“Doing it the night of the game is pretty stressful,” she said.

Junior guard Kaylene Smilke dropped 17 points at Penn State on Jan 29. She spent the three-hour bus ride back recording a video for class, losing signal in the rural mountains and starting over.

“The kids get back at 1 a.m.,” Frese said, “and they’ve got class at 8 or 9. And they’re missing [in-person] classes last week and next. It’s a real thing for them. Just like we as a staff are always on to the next scout or next preparation, well, so are they, with what they’re juggling.”

Compared with the Pac-12 emigrants, Maryland is fortunate. The Terps only need to make this one cross-country trip and back, and their physical sojourn into the new Big Ten is through for the season. Oregon, UCLA and Washington are traveling outside their old conference borders for Big Ten play a combined 22 times.

In June, Maryland competed in an overseas tour in Split, Croatia. Frese mentioned it to UCLA coach Cori Close.

“They joked they’d been over on the East Coast for their own foreign trips,” Frese said.

As grueling as this trip can be on the Terps players, Frese and her staff intend to interlace practices and games with “bonding” trips to the Space Needle and Pike Place Market in Seattle around the Washington game.

Ryland Adkins, in her fourth season as director of basketball operations for Maryland, has to be creative, too. Her days have gotten even longer.

Her biggest challenge has been working with restaurant staff in California and the Pacific Northwest — already night owls, and three hours behind at that — to ensure her players have something to eat over the next week. Some snacks are packed, but Adkins expects to have grocery runs.

Maryland charters its flights through BWI Marshall Airport, but longer trips mean more money spent. The old 30-seater planes won’t accommodate the entire team, strength coach, athletic trainers, team managers and staff needed to run the program across the country. So, Adkins must upgrade to the 68-seaters. According to Maryland athletics, women’s basketball charter flight expenses increased about 23%. In addition, Oregon, California and Washington all rank above the national average in terms of cost of living, and that’s indicated in food and hotel prices.

Fuel stops can cause travel challenges reserved for cross-country games.

“You don’t know if we’re gonna have to stop for more fuel, and then, where are we stopping?” she said. “Are you able to get off the plane? What are those logistics?”

Even something as seemingly simple as picking a hotel is tricky. The Terps have their go-to locations in Iowa, Nebraska and so on, but choosing the wrong sleeping spot on the West Coast could spiral into a bad performance for the already jet-lagged players.

Like Frese, Adkins communicates with other Big Ten directors of basketball operations regularly for the best hotels, postgame meals and vendors and packs them into a spreadsheet.

“We’re still trying to figure out what’s best,” she said. “It’s all a work in progress.”

Have a news tip? Contact Katherine Fominykh at kfominykh@baltsun.com or DM @capgazsports on Instagram.