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WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. –After receiving a rebound pass from junior guard Eric Ayala at the top of the arc, second-year forward Donta Scott used a fake tease pump to chase his defender, then stormed the lane. He took off from the free throw line, leaping through the air at full throttle to display a Connecticut defenseman with a powerful one-handed kick.
Huskies forward Adama Sanogo then scored a layup at the other end, but the Maryland men’s basketball was not fazed at all. The bright lights were on, and this time it was Aaron Wiggins’ turn. The junior guard cut into the paint, caught a pass from Darryl Morsell, and burst into the basket for a slam dunk on his own to extend the Terps’ lead to 13.
Maryland entered Saturday’s game as the bottom seed of an NCAA tournament first-round game for the first time under head coach Mark Turgeon, chosen by almost all pundits of college basketball to fail. But the team found their rhythm to play with confidence, which allowed them to stand firm against an attempt at UConn’s comeback en route to a 63-54 victory.
The first-round game was to be a defensive brawl, but Maryland’s attack would not be stopped. The Terps shot 51.2% from court and 50% from depth, tearing the Connecticut defense apart.
Almost every college basketball expert in the country had picked the Huskies to win this one, and the opening minutes of the game provided a glimpse of why it might have been.
Connecticut had complete control of the boards from the opening point, grabbing four straight offensive rebounds before draining a triple to take a 3-0 lead. All of the Huskies’ first seven points came on second chance attempts, with the Terps struggling to dominate the defensive boards.
Junior guard Eric Ayala allowed the Terps to stay ahead despite such difficulties. He came out of the burning gates to score eight of Maryland’s top 10 points, doing so dazzlingly without missing a single shot.
The Terps played with fierce defense, only allowing the Huskies to make five of their first 18 shots from the ground, but that didn’t make much of a difference in the box’s score due to their poor performance on the boards. . In the Under-12 media timeout, Maryland held only a 13-11 lead after giving UConn nine second chance points on 10 offensive rebounds to start the contest.
Still, the dismal rebound performance didn’t do much damage to the Terps as they did so on the other end of the floor.
As the first half continued, Ayala’s heroic game continued. He was a man on a mission, who had no intention of slowing down anytime soon. After UConn took a 19-18 lead with just under eight minutes to go, Ayala drained a deep three with ease on a draw pass from Darryl Morsell to put his team back in the lead. And they never lagged behind from there again.
It was the junior guard’s last bucket of the half, as he sat the last four and a half minutes with two fouls. But as the Terps’ confidence grew, other players started to get into their rhythm as well.
On the next possession, following an ugly scramble for the ball after a missed shot from UConn, Hart again landed a crucial pass, returning the ball to Aaron Wiggins, who drained a triple to give the Terps a 28-19 lead.
The streak was part of a 10-0 run for Maryland, but the real catalyst for that span was their fierce defense, which forced Connecticut to miss eight straight shots amid a 4:06 drought.
While the Huskies failed on offense, their leading scorer in James Bouknight struggled to get himself on the right track. The Terps blitzed the projected lottery pick every time he stepped into the paint, with the Big Ten’s Defensive Player of the Year at Morsell also not making it easy for him.
UConn’s top scorer was limited to just 7 points on 3 of 11 shots in the first half, with the Huskies’ offense remaining neutral for most of the first 20 minutes of play. only 23.1% from the field and 33.3% from beyond the arc, as Maryland’s attack seemed perfectly paced, led by Ayala’s top 14 points in the first half to take a lead from 33-22 in the locker room. .
The Terps’ 75% mark from the depths was more than Connecticut had allowed in a half-season all season, with their previous record being 61.5% allowed at Georgetown on March 6.
Ayala’s hot streak resumed as soon as he returned to action to start the second half. He drained back-to-back jumpers in the first two minutes of action, extending Maryland’s lead to 43-29 before monstrous Scott and Wiggins dunks.
The Terps led with as many as 14 points, but the Huskies, who had struggled offensively throughout the game, started to come back into the game as the second half continued.
UConn used an 11-3 run in 6:37 to reduce Maryland’s lead to five with just under three minutes to go, with Maryland needing a quick response to kill their first round. And that’s exactly what he has done in the last 2:36, with four converted free throws from Ayala and Morsell widening the lead to 57-48, allowing the Terps to rely on their defense to get them through. the finish line.
Three things to know
1. Eric Ayala was electrifying. To start the game, Ayala had eight of the Terps’ top 10 points but he didn’t stop there. The guard finished the night with 23 8-for-14 shooting points from the field, 3-for-5 from depth and 4-for-4 from the board. In his 32 minutes on the pitch, Ayala caught four boards, got an assist and stole the ball from the Huskies three times. Whenever the Terps needed him most, Ayala sparked the team’s momentum. In the dying seconds of the game, Ayala handed the ball to Hakeem Hart for the layup to extend Maryland’s lead as they were up just six points.
2. The play in the painting was fairly uniform. While UConn has the size advantage over the undersized Terps, Maryland has managed to keep up in the paint at both ends of the floor. While the Huskies totaled 18 points in the paint themselves, the Terps produced 24, including several on twisty slam dunks.
3. Maryland then faces 2 seed Alabama. With the victory, The Terps are set to play the Crimson Tide in the round of 16 on Monday. Maryland is looking to move on to the Sweet Sixteen after failing at the 2019 NCAA tournament.
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