Talk Terps

There are the games that you should win — and there are the games you must win. Tonight’s match-up against Rutgers was the latter. However, Rutgers and their tough play at the end had the Terps on the wrong end of a 56-53 final score. The Terps cut it to one point with under a minute, and Rutgers got it back to three points to force Maryland to shoot a 3-pointer to try to tie it at the end. It was not meant to be.

The Maryland Terrapins men’s basketball team comes into this with a 13-9 record and 5-6 in the Big-Ten. Tonight is a matchup with their closest geographical Big-Ten rival as Rutgers comes to College Park, Maryland for this game at the Xfinity Center.

The Terps returned their “Big Three” of fifth-year seniors Jahmir Young and Donta Scott, along with junior big man Julian Reese and added some impressive freshmen like 6’5″ guard DeShawn Harris-Smith. Young is on a lot of awards finalist lists for top players in the country, and he leads Maryland with 20.9 points per game, second best in the Big Ten and 17th nationally, followed by Julian Reese (13.1 points, 9.7 rebounds). Donta Scott rounds out the top scorers with 11.1 points per game but has increased that output to 13.5 points over the last eight games.

COLLEGE PARK, MD. — Nebraska came out of the chute today hitting five 3-pointers to start their scoring, and it looked like the sluggish start by the Maryland Terps would sink them quickly. But then  Jahari Long stepped up big with his own 3-point scoring on his way to 11 points in the game, and that energized his team that went on a run and never looked back. It was a combination of aggressive defense to keep the Cornhuskers from uncontested 3-point shooting the rest of the way, and Maryland moving around the ball on offense to the open man for clear shots.

Nebraska came into College Park with a strong 15-5 record on the season, and a major upset win just 18 days ago against the No. 1 team in the country at the time, Purdue, and the Cornhuskers smoked them with a final score of 88-72. Many favored Nebraska in this game, and it started out to look like that until the freshman, Jamie Kaiser Jr., stepped up in the first half.