Terps have the recipe for home cooking
Maryland moves into tie for 2nd place in Big Ten Conference
COLLEGE PARK — The door to the No. 2 seed in the upcoming Big Ten Tournament is officially open for the Maryland men’s basketball team.
That’s because all five starters scored double-digit points to propel the Terps to a 75-59 victory over No. 21 Northwestern on senior day Sunday afternoon before an announced crowd of 17,950 at Xfinity Center.
The win helped Maryland improve to 16-1 at home, 4-1 in its last five games and 8-2 in its last 10. The program also completed its first undefeated conference record at home at 10-0 since the 2014-15 squad went 9-0 in its debut in the Big Ten. The Terps are the first Big Ten team to go perfect at home in conference play since Purdue in 2018-19.
More importantly, the Terps (20-9, 11-7) moved into a tie with the Wildcats (20-9, 11-7) for second place in the league and own the head-to-head tiebreaker. Maryland would clinch the No. 2 seed and a double bye to the Big Ten Tournament’s quarterfinal round on March 10 by defeating Ohio State on Wednesday and Penn State on Sunday — both of which are on the road.
Graduate student point guard Jahmir Young acknowledged the difficulty of mining success on the road, where the Terps are 4-8.
“We have to bring the same energy,” he said. “We have to have that urgency that we have at home, the defensive intensity. It’s going to go up and down. We’re not going to have the crowd with us. So just being able to fight for each other and just knowing that it’s us versus everybody, and really just trying to prove people wrong. That extra motivation, that extra push, I feel like that will put us over the hump.”
Young played a significant role in Sunday’s outcome, leading all scorers with 18 points, including 16 in the first half, and added three rebounds and two assists. Graduate student shooting guard Don Carey scored 13 points on 4 of 7 shooting from 3-point range.
Sophomore power forward Julian Reese, a Baltimore resident and St. Frances graduate, racked up his 17th double-double of the
season and 24th of his career with 12 points and 10 rebounds. Senior small forward Donta Scott scored seven of his 11 points in the second half and collected three rebounds and two assists, and senior shooting guard Hakim Hart amassed 10 points, seven assists and five rebounds.
Even those who didn’t get to double digits contributed heavily. Junior shooting guard Ian Martinez, who is usually known for his defensive prowess, came off the bench to score nine points on 3-for-3 shooting from 3-point range and scoop up three rebounds.
The offense converted a season-high 14 3-pointers on 22 attempts (63.6%), and coach Kevin Willard noted that the team hit five 3s in transition thanks to the defense.
“When you play at Wisconsin, you don’t get a whole lot of transition 3s. When you play at Purdue, you don’t get a whole lot of transition opportunities with the way the league’s designed,” he said. “So at home, I think we’ve taken advantage of being aggressive on defense — even though it’s led to some breakdowns — to get some opportunities to get some easy 3s in transition.”
Just as impressive was the Terps’ work on the defensive end of the floor. After a first half in which Northwestern shot 59.3% on 16 of 27 shooting, the defense harassed the Wildcats into 30.4% on 7 of 23 attempts in the second, holding them to 20 points in the final 20 minutes.
Senior point guard Boo Buie, who entered the game ranked fifth in the Big Ten in scoring at 17.6 points per game, was limited to four points on 1 of 9 shooting while compiling eight assists. Redshirt senior shooting guard Chase Audige finished with a teambest 16 points, but scored only two on 1 of 3 shooting in the second half.
“Just to make them work and make everything tough for them,” Carey said of the defensive plan against the Northwestern backcourt. “Those are two good basketball players, and we knew they were going to hit shots and find their ways to score. But we just wanted to just make everything tough. They were hitting a lot of shots in the first half, and we stayed with it in the second half, and our defense started to fall.”
Nursing a 41-39 lead at halftime, the Terps opened the second half with a 9-4 spurt capped by five straight points from Scott in a 59-second span. After Northwestern scored six of the game’s next 11 points to pull within 55-49 with 12:39 remaining,
Maryland embarked on a 12-2 run over a 5:04 stretch for a 67-51 advantage.
When senior power forward Robbie Baran sank a layup with 6:31 left in the second half, that ended a 4:42 drought for the Wildcats. But the Terps did not allow them to get any closer as Northwestern dropped its second game in a row following a five-game winning streak.
The Wildcats had entered the game leading the Big Ten in caused turnovers per game, forcing opponents into 13.3 mistakes. But Maryland gave away the ball just seven times on Sunday, and Northwestern coach Chris Collins credited the Terps’ ability to
move the ball out of trouble.
“For us, we’ve been a team that has turned people over, and for those guys to only have seven turnovers, that’s a credit to how they took care of the ball and got out of the traps and found the right guys,” he said. “Still, at the end of the day, you’ve still got to make the shot, and give those guys credit. Carey and Martinez combined for 7 of 10 from 3[-point range]. That’s not to knock them because they’re really good team players, but that really hasn’t been what they’ve done. Sometimes you have to tip your cap to shotmaking and a good team that beat you today.”