Maryland women’s basketball opens its season against UMass Lowell on Nov. 13. Until then, we’re profiling everyone on the Terps’ roster.

Destiny Slocum, freshman, guard, 5’7, No. 5

Hometown: Meridian, Idaho

High School: Mountain View HS

Twitter: @DestinySlocum24

Recruiting Ratings: Five stars, No. 7 player overall, No. 3 point guard, No. 1 player in Idaho

Collegiate Stats: N/A

How’d she get to College Park?

A very valid question, considering she’s from, ya know, Idaho. Slocum grew up seven hours from Portland and nine hours from Seattle; now she’s a brief metro ride from the nation’s capital.

Slocum was a national star, though. She was an All-American and a member of Team USA’s U-19 squad. She chose Maryland because the team’s style of play and the program’s atmosphere were good fits for her.

“[Coach Frese told me] that I was the missing piece,” Slocum told Testudo Times at media day, “that we needed to put everything together and we were like a puzzle, and we just needed a little bit of that missing piece, so I guess that was me.”

Maryland actually runs the same defense that Slocum played in high school, so in that regard she won’t have to adjust much, and her offensive skills should translate pretty well.

2016-17 Prospectus

Maryland’s two point guards from last season, Brene Moseley and Chloe Pavlech, are gone, and Slocum is the only natural point guard among the newcomers. She’ll get big minutes regardless of how well she plays.

There are eerie similarities between Slocum’s circumstance and Kristi Toliver’s situation 11 years ago. Both were their team’s only traditional point guards as freshmen, and neither needed to bear much of the scoring load. Toliver was one of five double-digit scorers on the ‘06 team, while Slocum is playing with two superstars in Shatori Walker-Kimbrough and Brionna Jones.

Of course, this comparison is optimistic. That ‘06 team won the title, and Toliver is now the starting point guard for the WNBA Champion Los Angeles Sparks. But Slocum is the most highly-touted point guard the Terps have landed in the last decade, so there’s reason to be excited.

What a dream season might look like

Slocum quickly becomes one of the top point guards in the country, bringing constant flashes of Toliver’s freshman season (including, if we’re lucky, the tournament clutchness).

Up Next

Our next player hasn’t played for Team USA, but has Olympic ties.