The Maryland Terrapins at home at the Xfinity Center celebrated Senior Day in a pre-game presentation of framed jerseys to Jahmir Young, Donta Scott, Jahari Long, and Jordan Geronimo. Head coach Kevin Willard had them all in the starting-5 along with Julian Reese, and the Terps responded with a halftime lead of 43-33 over Indiana. Maryland then took their biggest lead of the game at 51-35 on Young’s 3-point play early in the second half. That 16-point lead disappeared mid-way into the second half, and the Terps ended up with a 83-78 loss to fall into the bottom tier in the Big-Ten.
“They’ve laid down a foundation that will last — that was not here last year. That’s going to last a while.”
— Willard said of his senior players
Whatever went wrong in that second half just adds to the odd season in which Maryland has now lost 10-games in single digits. It is just two or three missed shots that seemingly buries this team every game. Points missed within five feet of the basket coupled with poor 3-point shooting has been this team’s problem — although 3-point shooting wasn’t the issue today going 37.5 percent from outside the arc.
Some would say today was just about closing out the game with a big lead where the Terps got too comfortable. That would seem accurate with the team shooting just 48.4 percent in field goals while the usually tough Maryland defense allowed Indiana to hit 56.4 percent of field goals. Both teams were great from the free throw line, which really accentuates that the loss was really about points near the basket.
With Scott and Young sinking back-to-back 3-pointers, the Terrapins trailed 77-72 at the 1:56 mark. Poor ball handling and decisions not to at least foul didn’t get the Terps andy closer in the five point loss.
On the current scoring for Young, his 22-points to lead the Terps got him to 2,581 career
points which is the 2nd most nationally for an active player. He leads Maryland with 20.9 points per game, third best in the Big-Ten and 15th nationally, followed by Reese (13.9 points, 9.7 rebounds). Scott rounds out Maryland’s top scorers with 11.3 points per game.
Mackenzie Mgbako scored 18 of his 24 points (4 of 8 from 3-point range) in the second half for Indiana which changed the momentum in the game as Indiana just chipped away.
“[Mgbako] got hot from three. We didn’t do a great job in transition defense. He had a great game.”
— Young said of Mgbako
The Terps fall to .500 at 15-15 on the season with a needed win at Penn State to finish with a winning record in the regular season. That game next Sunday is the regular season finale. Where does Willard go from here?
