Shyanne Sellers reckons Maryland women’s basketball came together by the end of the Croatia trip.

Sellers, who has competed for the Terps since her freshman year, chose to stay in College Park out of “loyalty” and a belief that her coaches would find the right people. In came seven transfers and three freshmen. She knew some of the newcomers a little — she played with Villanova transfer Christina Dalce on the USA Basketball 2023 women’s 3×3 U21 team — but most were virtually strangers.

That is, until they started cracking jokes.

Middletown High graduate Saylor Poffenbarger said she could quickly feel the hunger to win radiating from her new teammates. The 6-foot-2 redshirt junior transferred in after setting the University of Arkansas single-season record for defensive rebounds (225) to be surrounded by success.

Aboard a catamaran boat in Croatia — a break from the midsummer tournament they were there for — her straightforward perception transformed into something more complex as the squad sang, danced and partied.

She learned Sarah Te-Biasu, last year’s Atlantic 10 Player of the Year from VCU, is “mellow,” she said. Dalce, a 6-2 forward and reigning Big East Co-Defensive Player of the Year, is the opposite. Mostly everyone is “goofy.”

It might seem like scrapbook memories for them to share alone, but it’s the final answer to what has made this quilted crew, individually talented for their old teams, competitive as a unit to start the year 14-0. It might also help them weather the storm through an injury-addled slump.

“We have a lot of big personalities and we let them be,” Poffenbarger said. “They’re still big on the floor, in a game. We never let each other get too high or too low.”

There’s no “exact science” to building this sort of roster these days. Coach Brenda Frese refused to remain a relic of the era of college basketball before the transfer portal. She and her staff treat each roster as “one-year, semi-pro,” constantly working to assess their needs and fill them. Having one star who can monopolize on offense or defense isn’t going to work out long-term in that environment. Their goals for this season were to become more athletic, improve their rebounding and knock down more 3-pointers.

It’s a lot more work than the old days of boots on the ground and touring high schools.

“I’m lucky that I have such an experienced staff going on six, seven, eight years with me,” said Frese, who recently earned her 600th career win at Maryland.

The Terps (19-5, 9-4 Big Ten) opened this season on a 14-0 rampage, their best start since 2011-12. Their fourth consecutive Big Ten victory ended then-No. 23 Iowa’s 20-game winning streak at home. Just when it seemed unstoppable, Maryland absorbed the narrowest defeat to No. 4 Southern California, a riveting and hard-fought battle against future first-round WNBA draft picks JuJu Watkins and Kiki Iriafen to the end.

At the time, Frese and Sellers spoke to possessions that could have gone differently late in the game, but they were left “disappointed,” not devastated. Sellers, another likely first-round WNBA pick who’s on a shortlist of the nation’s top shooting guards, notched her 80th career game scoring in double figures.

Then, three days after netting a season-high performance at Wisconsin on Jan. 11, junior Bri McDaniel suffered a knee injury against Minnesota. On Jan. 20, she announced that she’d torn her ACL and would miss the rest of the season. Hours later, Sellers injured her right knee and exited what would spiral into an 89-51 blowout loss to seventh-ranked Texas.

“Losing Bri was a massive blow, especially in our guard play rotation,” Frese said. “And then when you lose your top two scorers, you have a very thin margin for error.”

Maryland has had little practice time between conference games to regroup. That week, Maryland suffered two more losses against top-15 teams, Ohio State and unbeaten UCLA. Sellers returned for a close win over Penn State on Jan. 29 and a one-point loss to Illinois on Feb. 2 for a combined 44 minutes. Maryland dropped from No. 8 to 14 to 16 in the AP Top 25 poll over the two weeks.

Frese remembers what it was like coaching Maryland in the Atlantic Coast Conference against titans such as Duke and North Carolina. You learn something about your team’s grit, she said. The Big Ten has never felt more like that era than now. It’s like an NCAA Tournament every day, she said.

“There’s always a defining point in the season that builds the character of your team,” Frese said. “Although the timing — playing three top-10 teams in a row and losing Shy and Bri at that same time — was less than ideal. In some eerie sort of way, the others had to step up and really learn how valuable they are.”

Junior Kaylene Smilke, the 6-6 transfer from Rutgers, marked her 23rd straight double-digit scoring output — the longest of her career — by scoring a career-high 36 points on Sunday against Washington. Te-Biasu scored a season-high 20 points against Penn State. Poffenbarger has constantly eclipsed double figures and Dalce has “been more consistent,” too.

Being able to draw from the bench helped Maryland excel in its triumphant conference run in 2020-21, a year in which injuries to starters such as Angel Reese required help from its depth.

The most recent NCAA Tournament bracket projections from the NCAA and ESPN project Maryland as a No. 5 seed. The first of two in-season top 16 rankings will be unveiled Sunday on ABC and the latter on Feb. 27 on ESPN2 before the full 68-tournament bracket is announced in mid-March.

Before then, Terps’ schedule won’t ease up. They have five games to play before the Big Ten Tournament, ending the regular season against No. 8 Ohio State on March 2.

Maryland feels prepared for it all.

“This is a Final Four team,” Sellers said. “We obviously went on a tough stretch with three top teams, but if those are our [main] losses, then we know we can compete with anyone — especially at full strength.”

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