As luck would have it, Maryland fans fortunate enough to get a ticket to the team’s important victory over the No. 3 ranked Iowa Hawkeyes were actually treated to two different games on Thursday night.
(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)
The first was a sensational first half where each team made play after play on the offensive end and played full throttle en route to a 41-35 Maryland lead. The raucous Xfinity Center crowd reached pandemonium levels as the home team continually shredded the Iowa defense on trips to the basket and made shot after shot from deep.
Still, they could never shake a Hawkeye team that had come in on a nine game heater and had been especially impressive on the road all season long.
The second half was a different game entirely. The Terps missed their first ten shots and at one point had just 8 points after almost 12 minutes of play. Were it not for Maryland’s efforts on the defensive end, the Hawkeyes may have been able to run away and hide but the most they were ever able to come up with was a one point advantage. It wasn’t like there wasn’t any pace to the second half…there just weren’t any shots made by either club and any runs made were usually over a long slog. Given the importance of the game – particularly to Maryland- it was twenty minutes sponsored by Maalox.
Regardless of the contradicting halves, the end result was an exhilarating 72-66 win for a team that still felt like, even at 17-3 entering the game, had a lot to prove. Iowa came into the game 7-0 in Big Ten play and had hammered every conference team they had played. They were so full of, um, themselves that they completely minimized the significance of the Xfinity crowd (see Utoff, Jarrod).
There were so many heroes wearing white jerseys it’s hard to know where to start for giving out game balls. So let’s start with Rasheed Sulaimon. Mired in a two game mini-slump and slow to start against the Hawkeyes, he scored nine points over the last five minutes of the first half and made play after play offensively for his club. His defense on Iowa guard Peter Jok was tenacious and sensational as he fought around Iowa screens all night. He held Jok to 14 points on 12 field goal attempts while regaining his shooting touch and dropping in 17 points of his own. Only his 2-5 performance at the foul line kept him from getting a gold star on his forehead.
Robert Carter can be a defensive liability. He can also be the best offensive power forward in the country. He got off to a great start against Iowa and took it right at Iowa’s star Utoff time after time in the first half. Utoff, like a lot of really gifted offensive talents appeared to be defensively indifferent. And Carter took advantage. Repeatedly. He was also essential to solving the Iowa 2-3 zone down the stretch and made a number of plays from the high post that provided momentum down the stretch of the game. It’s a shame he wasn’t around to see the end of the game. The fifth foul called on him bordered on criminal. That said, he was a Stud (capital S) in this game.
I’m not sure why Jake Layman gets the grief he does from the Maryland fan base. His game has totally evolved after four years and he is totally willing and able to do the dirty work it takes to win games like this one. I’ve been involved in college basketball for 40 straight years now (yeah, I’m freaking old) and I can count on one hand the number of players I’ve actually believed when they told me they didn’t care how many points they score. Jake is one of those guys. His personality, his game, his commitment, everything has changed in his four years in College Park. Embrace it. While Carter started the game on Utoff it was Layman who did the yeoman’s work on him. He was more than equal to the task and kept the talented Hawkeye under wraps all game long. So many players equate their success with making shots. Even when he was struggling from the field in the second half after lighting Iowa up in the first half, Layman was suffocating on defense.
When you have your two, three and four playing at that high a level the rest of the troops just have to be average. Melo Trimble had a quiet night for him, most likely because Iowa played so much zone but he still did a solid job covering Iowa point guard Mike Gesell and made critical free throws down the stretch. Damonte Dodd came off the Maryland bench to play a really important role and played better than he has in a few weeks. His three of four from the free throw line down the stretch were huge. Diamond Stone had foul trouble in the first half but came back to be an offensive presence down the stretch.
So the win improves Mark Turgeon’s team to 18-3 overall and 7-2 in Big Ten play. There are so many games ahead – for everybody- that it’s difficult to make a big deal out of any single game. A loss at Ohio State on Sunday, for instance, would minimize the value of last night’s win. To a degree, you’re only as good as your last performance in college basketball these days.
There are still issues to work through and answers that need to be ferreted out. The Terps desperately need to figure out who can give them 6-8 minutes a game as the fourth guard. Varun Ram has gotten the call of late and the results have been somewhat mixed. Jaylen Brantley offers up a different skill set. What Ram gives you on defense, Brantley gives you on offense. Maybe we could play Jaylen Ram or Varun Brantley? Figuring out what to do there may be essential in having Sulaimon and Trimble ready to go when March rolls around.
Terps Analyst
A fixture in the Washington sports scene since his days as a player and a coach, Chris Knoche has accumulated a diverse resume as a media presence in town for more than two decades. That resume has earned him opportunities on both national and local stages and made him a Washington DC staple on radio, television and in digital media.