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With less than a minute to go, the Maryland men’s basketball player was desperate for the crucial bucket they needed to get off the road upset against No.12 Illinois.
As the seconds ticked by, the Terps turned to his longest-serving player and Darryl Morsell’s chief executive. After receiving the ball on a screen from Jairus Hamilton, Morsell stepped in and took Ayo Dosumnu to the edge. Fighting through contact in the air, Morsell tilted it into the glass and inside, putting Maryland ahead 64-61 with 33 seconds left.
Maryland kept Illinois’ powerful offense to just two points in the 4:08 final of the game, making timely plays at either end of the floor to draw the road surprise, 66-63.
Despite a 2-5 start in the Big Ten game, head coach Mark Turgeon’s team have now upset two top opponents, with then-No. 6 Wisconsin like the other. And the team also avoided falling below .500 with the win.
“We really had a fight tonight,” said head coach Mark Turgeon. “It’s a great basketball team and I think it’s a team that could be a Final Four team. We just fought, and it was like Maryland basketball.
Although the Terps are double-digit underdogs entering Sunday night’s contest, they are even further shorthanded than expected. It was announced ahead of the report that junior guard Eric Ayala would not play due to a groin injury suffered against Iowa on Thursday, leaving Maryland without its top scorer.
As a result, Turgeon opted to move junior guard Aaron Wiggins to point guard, pairing him with second student Hakim Hart and Morsell in the backcourt.
“It’s just a matter of everyone stepping into a different role,” Wiggins said. “When you lose someone like [Ayala], everyone needs to step up to some degree, whether it’s energy, whether it’s guys on the bench, whether it means scoring on offense, rebounding or making plays.
On the other side, led by their two-star Dosunmu and striker Kofi Cockburn, Illinois attacked Maryland at their weakest point: paint. The 7-foot, 285-pound Cockburn immediately began trying to establish his presence on the low block, the Terps countering with their larger indoor presence in 6-foot-9, 235-pound senior forward Galin Smith. .
Smith turned out to be a draw early on, as Cockburn steadily put the ball in a deep post position and showed an impressive touch around the rim, converting three of his first four field goal attempts into all four. first minutes of play.
The next man tasked with making an impact inside the paint was sophomore striker Chol Marial. Marial appeared to have been virtually ruled out of the squad’s rotation, playing just one minute against Indiana on Jan.4 before failing to see ground against Iowa.
However, Turgeon turned to Marial early in the first half, bringing him to the floor to provide a spark for the Terps. At 13:51, Illini striker Giorgi Bezhanishvili tried to back Marial to the low post, but the tall Sudanese man remained standing and forced the dud.
Coming down to the other end, Marial prepared for a pick-and-pop with Jairus Hamilton, receiving the pass from beyond the arc and knocking it down without any hesitation, reducing Maryland’s deficit to 16-14 with 13:36 to play in the half.
But both Terps were passed by Cockburn as the game continued, center Illini making his way to his places to score a high 16 points in the first half.
With Ayala’s absence slimming down a guardhouse that was already severely short of ball handlers, Maryland had to rely on freshman guard tandem Marcus Dockery and Aquan Smart to take over.
Forced to rely on two inexperienced young players to defend themselves against a top opponent in a hostile environment, Dockery and Smart did everything to keep their heads above water. Each was prone to the occasional error, whether it was walking away from the shooters on the defensive side or making live ammunition turnovers on the other.
Maryland turned cold for a scorching drought lasting more than three minutes midway through the first half, but the defense stepped up to force equally poor shots from Illinois before a layup from Smart didn’t put the Terps behind just 23-20 with just over eight minutes to go. until half-time.
Despite Dosunmu in control for much of the period (7 points on a 2-11 shot), Maryland’s first half appeared to be punctuated by another scoreless run, this time lasting close to three minutes.
But with 10 seconds remaining, second-year forward Donta Scott drifted off the three-point line and quickly came down from a show jumping over time. Scott buried the treble, scoring 11 points in his 18 minutes on the floor to put the Terps behind just 34-32 at the half.
But the real test of Maryland’s resolve in this area was sure to come in the second half. Illinois have been the stereotype of the “second-half team” this season, most recently beating Northwestern 53-13 in the final 20 minutes of their win on Thursday.
Early in the second half, however, Morsell decided it was time to start chasing his offensive shot. Morsell opened the scoring for Maryland in the second frame, coming out of the midrange and sinking it to move the Terps forward quickly.
Two minutes later, he took first-year goaltender Illini Adam Miller into the post, turning to his left for another jumper who found the back of the net. On the defensive possession that followed, Morsell stayed step by step with Dosumnu on a drive to the rim and forced the dud.
Bringing the ball to the other end, Morsell dove around a Galin Smith screen and shot from the top of the key again, throwing in another kick to put the Terps in front 43-41 with 16:42 to do in the half.
Morsell scored 11 points in the first six minutes of half-time, helping Maryland start the second half 77.8 percent off the ground to keep pace and keep hopes of an upset alive.
“It was just a big game for him,” Wiggins said of Morsell’s performance. “He would score the ball, he would bounce for us, make plays, and he was a leader. So when he’s like that, our team is at the top of our game.
But as the two teams stood shoulder to shoulder the entire length, Illinois turned to their two stars when they needed them most. Dosumnu started to warm up in the second half, missing just one of his first six shots from the field to climb back to 19 points at 7:00 am. Cockburn continued to get what he wanted as low, eclipsing 20 points with over six minutes remaining as well.
“My job today was to make it as hard as possible for him and just win,” Morsell said.
Maryland’s offense turned cold again at an inopportune moment, this time going nearly four minutes without a bucket as the game neared critical moment. Yet the Illinois offense once again failed to take advantage of the cold snap, with Wiggins ultimately ending it with a pull-up jumper plus the foul to tie things up at 59-59 with 5:08 to go. .
The two teams continued their shooting bouts down the home stretch, with the contest still in place as the minutes rolled by. After going scoreless for almost four minutes, a miss from Morsell bounced back into the senior’s hands, which quickly tipped him over to a wide-open Hart on the outside of the arc, which buried the triple to put Maryland ahead 62-61 with just 1:18 left.
With a subsequent bucket of Morsell, the Terps defense carried the team across the board, holding the Fighting Illini scoreless for four minutes before the final seconds.
“Coach Turgeon is always talking about valuing assets and how one or two assets can change the game,” Morsell said. “And as you see a late game, it’s a one point game, a two point game. So having that experience and just trusting each other knowing that we’ve been there and things like that is very important for sure.
Three things to know
1. Maryland is once again responding in a big way. With its season on the line, the Terps earned another unlikely road victory against one of the best teams in the conference. After upsetting Wisconsin in Madison less than a month ago, Maryland have shown they can beat anyone any night. Pulling off tonight’s win without Ayala any less, how much Maryland can ride the momentum from Sunday’s win could turn the tide for its season.
“It shows you that they are not giving up,” said Turgeon of his players’ effort. “Our guys have a lot of pride. There are a lot of guys in this dressing room who have won a lot of games, and it rubbed off on the others tonight.
The team have now beaten two of the top 15 teams in the same season for the first time since 2014-15, when they beat No.13 from Iowa State and No.5 from Wisconsin.
2. Maryland was dominated on glass. Although he had already dropped a certain size indoors ahead of Sunday’s game, Maryland made his problem worse by not boxing effectively on both ends. Illinois beat Maryland 40-33, with Cockburn leading with a game-high 10 rebounds. The Illini also had 13 offensive rebounds, contributing six second chance points.
3. The Terps took advantage of their opportunities on the free throw line. Throughout this season, Maryland have struggled to force their opponents to foul on the edge and generate moves towards the foul. And even when Maryland got to the charity band, they only shot 67.8% as a team. But that wasn’t the case on Sunday night, as the Terps went 14-17 from the line, the strongest there in five games.
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