Down by five points heading into the second half, Maryland men’s basketball needed a spark to propel it over Indiana on its home court and secure its first Big Ten win.
But the only spark in Xfinity Center Wednesday came from the away team bench.
Lamar Wilkerson’s second half showing demonstrated exactly why he’s the Hoosiers’ leading scorer this season. The transfer guard from Sam Houston State registered 18 second-half points on 3-of-5 shooting from downtown — the Terps fell flat in response.
Unable
to muster a scoring effort to compete with Wilkerson, Maryland was downed for the second time in five days at home, 84-66.
Head coach Buzz Williams’ strategy to push his team’s pace of play was evident early. It paid dividends quickly — each of Maryland’s first eight points came in the paint against favorable matchups or on drives to the hoop.
After hoisting a staggering 35 threes and making just seven against Oregon, the dichotomy of the two offensive gameplans could not have been more stark. In fact, through the first 10 minutes of play, the Terps only attempted two 3-pointers.
Maryland’s paint efforts, combined with its staunch defense — the Terps limited Indiana to just 4-of-13 shooting in the first 10 minutes — resulted in an early advantage. It also led to some physical, aggressive sequences, including a thundering offensive foul from Darius Adams that sent Hoosiers guard Conor Enright flying to the court.
After notching a career-high 17 points against the Ducks on Friday, Solomon Washington continued to look comfortable on the offensive end. His bag of moves is expanding; at one point, the forward knocked down a twisting fadeaway jumper roughly 15 feet from the hoop. Washington finished with 14 points and nine rebounds.
Maryland hit a significant cold stretch halfway through the first period. It embarked on an 4:29 scoring drought, while Indiana tallied 12 unanswered points.
It was a stretch that included three Terps turnovers, but perhaps the premier reason for the Hoosiers’ run was their ability to effectively draw fouls — it shot and sank 12 free throws in the first 13 minutes of play. Maryland, however, employing a similar style of play, was largely one-and-done on the offensive end, missing its shots without creating much contact.
The Terps’ aversion to shooting from downtown rapidly transformed into an inability to hit from deep range altogether. Diggy Coit’s stint off the bench failed to provide a spark from 3-point territory; he shot 1-of-6 from the field and 0-of-3 from deep in the first half.
The only thing that kept Maryland from entering the half without a 3-pointer or an assist was Andre Mills’ leaning triple with 31 seconds left, courtesy of a Washington feed. The sequence gave the Terps some life heading into the second period down 36-31.
But Indiana stormed out of the gate in the second half, notching 12 points and three 3-pointers in the first four minutes. Enright, who averaged just 3.8 points per game heading into Wednesday’s matchup, found himself with 12 with over 17 minutes left to play. Wilkerson also began to heat up, scoring a bucket in transition and completing a four-point play within just minutes of each other.
Indiana’s run only continued. A Mills missed 3-pointer with 15:37 left was quickly corralled by Indiana and turned upcourt. The ball found the scorching Wilkerson from beyond the arc and he made the Terps pay, expanding his team’s lead to 12 points.
The Hoosiers’ slow and steady separation from the Terps sent Maryland into panic mode — that is, the strategy it entered the contest with dissipated. Suddenly, Williams’ squad was chucking threes left and right in an attempt to claw back into the game, but to no avail.
Maryland forewent cutting and driving for lifeless perimeter passing and well-covered 3-pointers. In contrast to their two triples attempted in the first 10 minutes of the opening half, the Terps heaved eight shots from deep range in the first 10 minutes of the second period — they made just one of them.
With no major run or response in the final minutes, Maryland went out with a whimper — and Darius Adams fouled out of the game altogether.
Three things to know
1. Free throw boost. Indiana created contact around the hoop all night long, going 22-of-26 from the charity stripe. Reed Bailey was especially active from the line, going 7-of-9. The Terps shot 17 free throws themselves, but only made 11 of them.
2. Minimal bench contribution. With Watts and Adams starting, the Terps’ two premier scorers off the bench came in the form of Coit and Myles Rice. But the guards combined for just 13 points on 6-of-15 shooting — in fact, they were the only players in a Maryland uniform to score off the bench Wednesday.
3. Elijah Saunders showed out. There were few positives to take away from Wednesday’s debacle, but Elijah Saunders did score a Maryland career-high in points with 16, while adding seven rebounds. The transfer forward from Virginia went 5-of-8 from the field and manned the paint well in Pharrel Payne’s absence.
