Allie Kubek excelling for Maryland women’s basketball after battling back from second ACL tear: ‘I’m not a quitter’

Allie Kubek knew immediately.

She didn’t need to see the MRI or a doctor to explain what happened to her knee.

“As soon as it happened, I was screaming because I knew it was torn,” she said.

During a preseason practice in 2022, Kubek tore the ACL in her left knee, ending her first season on the Maryland women’s basketball team before it could even start.

The injury came about four and a half years after she first tore the ACL in her right knee as a sophomore in high school. Just as she knew she tore it during the Terps’ practice, the difficulty of the rehabilitation process flooded back to her.

Kubek was originally unsure if she could do it again, sobbing with her mother, Jessica, and briefly questioning whether her basketball career was over. But that self-doubt was fleeting, and for good reason. Kubek is showing this season why the grueling recovery was worth it, as the redshirt junior forward is now healthy and the Terps’ best post player.

“I’m not a quitter,” Kubek said. “I wouldn’t quit even if I tore my ACL again. I wouldn’t quit. I wouldn’t do that. That’s not me.”

After missing last season, Kubek began the 2023-24 campaign coming off coach Brenda Frese’s bench. She quickly proved she’s worthy of more playing time and moved into the team’s starting five. Through 13 games, she’s one of four Terps scoring in double figures, as the Elkton native is averaging 10.2 points and 4.8 rebounds per game.

“She’s been one of the most impressive I’ve seen come back from injury like she has,” Frese said earlier this season. “It’s remarkable what she’s doing. She’s a massive presence for us, so just love to see a healthy Allie back. She really makes us a lot better.”

The path that got Kubek to excel for Maryland began at a middle school basketball showcase hosted by Marcus Thompson, the girls basketball coach at Sanford School, a private school in Delaware. As she went through drills, someone who knows a thing or two about playing in the paint told Thompson about Kubek’s potential.

“She’s going to be phenomenal,” Thompson recalls Pervis Ellison, the No. 1 overall pick in the 1989 NBA draft who played 11 seasons in the league and four with Washington, saying during the camp. “Her hands and feet are some of the best I’ve seen on a middle school kid.”

“He was absolutely correct,” said Thompson, who has coached Sanford’s girls team for two decades. “Allie is one of the most gifted players I’ve ever seen in far as innate ability to be able to sense where the ball is going, get her hands and feet in position and to make plays.”

As a sophomore at Sanford, Kubek was approaching a critical summer on the circuit as Division I schools eye players to recruit. But near the end of her high school season, Kubek tore her ACL, ending her season and making her basketball future murky.

“When I first tore my ACL, a lot of my letters of interest kind of went away because it was this thing where they didn’t know how I was going to come back,” she said.

She returned during her junior season after a nearly 10-month recovery and helped lead Sanford to a state championship. As she approached college, she chose to stay close to home and pick a school that remained by her side throughout her high school career.

“Towson was my first offer when I tore my ACL, so I felt like that was a big thing for me, too. It showed loyalty,” she said.

After scoring 8.9 points per game as a freshman with the Tigers, Kubek broke out as a sophomore in 2021-22, averaging 14.6 points and 6.2 rebounds a contest and was named to the All-Colonial Athletic Conference third team. Once Towson coach Diane Richardson left for Temple, Kubek entered the transfer portal and hoped Maryland, which didn’t recruit her out of high school, would show interest.

“Maryland has always been one of my dream schools, so I thought it was the right fit for me,” she said. “I kind of always knew I was a good player, no matter where I went. I always knew I had a lot of potential to be a really great player. After Towson where I had a pretty good year, I thought I could definitely play at a higher level school and contribute.”

But her first season with the Terps was derailed with another torn ACL. Rehabilitation is “draining,” she said, but it helped to have teammate Emma Chardon, who tore her meniscus, by her side as they recovered together.

In her Maryland debut, Kubek scored eight points in the Terps’ season-opening win over Harvard at Xfinity Center. Maryland was ranked No. 14 at the time but has since fallen out of the Associated Press Top 25 poll after one of the NCAA’s longest streaks inside the rankings. The Terps are 9-4 as they adjust to life without Diamond Miller and Abby Meyers, both of whom were selected in the top 11 of the 2023 WNBA draft.

Two weeks later, Kubek led Maryland in scoring with 23 points to lead the Terps to a narrow win over Syracuse. She was 10 of 14 from the field and grabbed eight boards. After the game, she embraced the large group of family and friends in attendance to see the stellar performance.

“I was definitely happy and proud to be back on the court, but I was more happy about the fact that my parents were there,” Kubek said. “I know that they’re proud of me, so that makes me happy I got back out there.”

The only player to lead the team in scoring more often than Kubek, who has done so twice, is star guard Shyanne Sellers.

“I don’t want to toot her horn,” Sellers said with a laugh after the win over Syracuse. “Allie is super vital for us. … Obviously being able to come off an ACL injury, I think it’s huge and should be good for us in the long run.”

Kubek believes her best basketball is ahead of her, saying her knee will “get better with time.” Thompson agrees, noting that’s what happened when she came back from her first ACL tear.

“Wait until you see her when she’s fully healthy,” he said. “You’ll see how special Allie is.”

No matter how the rest of the season goes — wins or losses, good performances or bad, healthy or injured — Kubek is approaching it with a calm mindset. Two knee injuries, ACL surgeries and lengthy recoveries have given her a greater appreciation and a fresh perspective on the game.

“The big thing I learned last year is that basketball gives you a lot of things, but you can’t let it impact how you feel about yourself,” Kubek said. “I feel like last year and the years before I played in college, I was very nervous because I had so much pressure I put on myself. Now, it’s one of these things, like, you’ve been playing your whole life, why are you nervous?

“Just play. You’re going to be OK.”

Maryland at Minnesota

Wednesday, 8 p.m.

Stream: Big Ten Plus