BALTIMORE, Maryland January 28, 2016 - Maryland took the floor in College Park Thursday Night, knowing it had dumped itself into a 'must-win' scenario by losing at Michigan State last Saturday. It was a gnarly loss that led to a lot of soul-searching by a lot of people connected to this multi-talented and very good Terrapin Team. In the closely contested game in East Lansing, the Terps seemed unwilling to do what had to be done in order to win. After battling like all get out to stay close to the homestanding and now 12th ranked Spartans, Maryland fiddled through the closing minutes of the game rushing its shots, throwing up ill-conceived shots, and forgetting, as a team, that its prime offensive threat, All-American Guard Melo Trimble, wasn't getting the chance to bring them home. Normally, one would say it was no disgrace to lose in East Lansing to a team that had spent many weeks this season ranked as the No. 1 team in the land. But Maryland has more talent than does Michigan State, yet didn't come close to showing it in East Lansing on Saturday. It was a crying shame.
Yet you have to give Maryland and its coaches credit. Back home in College Park Thursday night, these Terps responded with pure grit and determination to the challenge of the 'sort of' desperate situation they had put themselves in. Thanks in no small part to the outstanding play of Rasheed Sulaimon and Robert Carter, Jr., each of whom had 17 monster points, and of Trimble, the Terps beat back the third-ranked Iowa Hawkeyes, 74-68. It was Iowa's first Big Ten defeat, and it dropped the Hawkeyes back into a first place tie with Indiana. More importantly for Maryland, the win put the Terps into second place, now just one game behind the two leaders. The only bad thing for Maryland as they wake Friday in College Park is the reality of the completely unfair schedule they have been dealt by their new conference . Maryland only plays Michigan State once in conference play, and it was the game last Saturday in East Lansing. Maryland only plays Indiana once - the last game of the regular season - and that game is in Bloomington. Of the top contenders, the only team Maryland gets in College Park is Iowa.
Iowa managed to hold Trimble in check offensively, but Trimble was not to be contained in the larger context of helping his team win a critical game. The All-American made big play after big play going down the wire. He ran the Maryland offense brilliantly, and Maryland's margin should have been much larger. Sadly, the Terps missed what seemed like dozens of open looks, especially in the second half. Jared Nickens seems to have lost his deadly touch from three-point range, although he did play a very solid floor game and converted on two very important drives to the basket. Maryland is relying heavily on Nickens to play a lot of minutes and take on very important defensive assignments, and it might be affecting his outside shooting. It wasn't just Nickens, though, who was out of sorts in spite of the many open looks Trimble was consistently providing them with. Maryland was only 6-25 from three-point range, and while Nickens was 0-4, Layman was just 1-8 from outside and Carter was 0-2. Fortunately, one player who was red hot from outside was Sulaimon. The Duke transfer was absolutely outstanding on both ends of the floor after suffering through a bad shooting night at East Lansing. Sulaimon was a sizzling 3-5 from long range and was astounding on the defensive end of the floor. As I describe it below, Sulaimon managed to dupe the officiating crew into making an atrocious foul call on Hawkeye Center Adam Woodbury. The foul Woodbury was charged with was his fifth - and final - foul. That call came with 7:54 left to play and Iowa ahead by a point. Up to the second he fouled out, the 7'1" senior pivotman was having his usual "below the radar" but nevertheless truly outstanding game. Because of foul trouble, Woodbury managed to stay on the floor only 26 minutes, but in that time he scored 11 points on 5-6 shooting, and snared 10 rebounds. Just as essential for Iowa, he gave the Hawkeyes a big and dangerous inside presence to counteract Maryland's superb inside players Carter, Layman and Diamond Stone.
Trimble finished with 11 points, including 2-6 from beyond the three-point arc. But that doesn't begin to tell the story of Trimble's night. In a critical game, the Maryland point guard pulled in 6 rebounds, dished out three "official" assists and made three very real steals. More importantly, in a game of constant on-ball pressure from Iowa, the amazing Trimble had but one turnover. For the game, the entire game, Melo Trimble had all of one turnover.
The biggest play of the night came with Iowa in possession of the ball and down by just four points with 1:16 left on the clock. Hawkeye senior point guard Mike Gesell tried to take Trimble to the baseline and it blew up right there in Gesell's face. In a slight-of-hand that would make any magician proud, the Terrapin sophmore stripped Gesell of the ball and had the wherewithall to then grab the ball before it squirted out of bounds. Then, in what seemed like one continuing motion, Trimble managed to get the ball ahead to an already breaking Jake Layman. Maryland's two forwards, Layman and Carter, are both 6'9" but dribble and handle the ball like guards. When Layman got what was in essence an outlet pass from Trimble, he took off dribbling right down the middle of the floor with several Hawkeyes all around him. At the very last, Layman laid it off to his left to a sprinting Jared Nickens. Nickens is much better driving to the hoop than people give him credited for, and on this play he took Layman's very sweet pass and easily drove to the basket and laid it in. The play essentially ended Iowa's chances.
Robert Carter sparked Maryland's offense throughout the game, while Layman - who was cold shooting from the floor - held Iowa's leading offensive threat, Jarrod Uthoff, in check with a determined defensive show. Layman found success against Uthoff by keeping his own feet on the floor against the 6'9" Wisconsin transfer, who leads the Hawkeyes in scoring with an 18.4 points per game average. Layman knew he didn't have to jump everytime Uthoff looked to shoot because of his own 6' 9" frame. He used that height and his long arms to irritate Uthoff's outside shot. For the game, Uthoff was 0-3 from three-point range. And by not jumping when Uthoff showed outside shot, Layman was ready and able to guard the Iowa star like a hawk when he tried to drive. Layman's approach produced outstanding results. Uthoff was only 2-13 from the field for the game. Layman has played great this season in some tough situations. At Michigan, he was a bright star on an otherwise dismal and losing night. Other times, he has been not so great; last Saturday at Michigan State was one of those games. Against the Hawkeyes, Layman, like Trimble, finished with 11 points. Even when Layman's shot is off, he has worked like a dog underneath the basket. Even in games when his always unpredictable shot is not working, Layman shows the ability to grab gritty and very clutch late game rebounds. That is something that is brand new and a radical improvement over past years. There was no better example of this gritty ability than against No. 3 Iowa.
Just seconds before the Nickens drive, there was another critical play that helped Maryland begin to open some breathing room in crunch time. Leading only by two points, and having lost Carter to fouls (see below), Turgeon took a time-out and conjured up as sweet a play as you could ever hope for. The Maryland coach knew Iowa would be in a man-to-man defense because they were behind and there was little time left on the clock. All of Maryland's players, save for Stone, moved away from the basket. When the ball came in-bounds, the Terps passed it to Layman on the left side of the lane. Layman threw a perfect lob pass over the Iowa defense to 6'11" freshman center Diamond Stone on the low post. Once he caught the ball, Stone had no trouble leaping to the basket and jamming it home. Stone finished with 9 essential points. Turgeon did more than draw up that play for his freshman center, he also placed him in the starting line-up for the first time in Big Ten play.
The ESPN Announcers - and I confess that analyst Dan Dakich is one of my real favorites even though some of the stuff he says aggravates the you-know-what out of me - were praising the officiating trio in College Park Thursday Night. All three, they noted, had called at least one Final Four game. Then, wouldn't you know it, the trio went out and made two really awful calls in critical situations near the end of the game. These were calls that very much affected the outcome of the game. The first bad call came with just under eight minutes left and Iowa clinging to a one-point lead. The Hawkeye's often overlooked and under-appreciated center, Adam Woodbury, was in foul trouble through-out the game and was playing at this moment with four fouls on him. Maryland's ever-alert senior guard, Rasheed Sulaimon, knew it. Whenever Woodbury took a seat on the bench, Maryland immediately began feeding the ball inside to Robert Carter. Hawkeye coach Fran McCaffery was rolling the dice because he couldn't afford to fall behind on the road.
Ahead by a point, Iowa ran a play that called for Woodbury to set a screen near the foul line. When Sulaimon, with his back to Woodbury's back, slid by the Hawkeye, he managed to hook Woodbury in some manner, and Woodbury was forced to move two or three steps to regain his balance and footing. That was what happened. Except the officials thought they saw something else. As they saw it, Woodbury had set a moving screen and was whistled for his fifth and final foul. He was gone. McCaffery went ballistic and nearly earned what would've been a disasterous technical foul, but after making a really bad call, at least the Final Four Trio didn't make it worse.
Or did they? A moment later, and with Woodbury gone, Maryland went right back to Carter. The junior transfer from Georgia Tech went up for a shot about three feet from the hoop and with three frantic Iowa players clawing at him quite conspicuously. But: the obvious foul of Carter in the act of shooting was not called. With his forearm pinned to his body, Carter lost control of the ball. Play continued and Iowa's Mike Gesell came out of the scrum trying to dribble the ball. Carter reached out for the ball as Gesell seemed to get control of it, but he never came close to touching either Gesell or the ball. That's what actually happened. I saw it myself. Then, I saw it again. But, fortunately. I'm not one of the Final Four Trio. Now, one of the Final Four Trio blew his whistle. Oh Boy! Talk about a make-up call! Three trained Final Four Officials, a play right out in the open for the 17,950 in Maryland's Gym to see plain as day, but somehow, none of the Final Four Trio saw what actually happened or didn't happen. Oh, and by the way, Carter also had four fouls. Now he was gone and none too happy. Turgeon had his face all scrunched up. Sulaimon was standing in the middle of the floor shouting about how cruel the world can be. So be it. What Turgeon and company were now confronted with was trying to get through the final 7:54 without Robert Carter, Jr.
The Final Four Trio was on the prowl now. Maryland was in a heap of trouble. Their lead was gone and now Carter was gone. If it was a make-up call, the Terps got the raw end. In many games, including this game, Carter has been almost as essential to Maryland as Trimble has been. With the 6'9" Carter on the floor, Turgeon can use him and four ball-handlers in certain critical situations. Without Carter, he has to improvise. For the game, and besides his 17 points, Carter had 7 rebounds and 4 assists. He is big. He is one of the most determined players you'd ever want to see. He is also very very good.
The Final Four Trio seem to have the same disease that consumes most basketball referees: they're far more interested in protecting some ridiculous notion of personal pride and invincibility than in getting the call correct. Both of these awful calls came in crunch time, and in both cases, the official who made the bad call was not corrected by the other two. In fact, in neither case did the mistaken official even talk to the his two referees. One would hope that one of the 'other two' saw the play correctly and was in position to make sure the play was actually called correctly. The call againt Carter was right out in the open and should have been seen, correctly, by somebody in the crew. But in both situations, the really bad call was allowed to stand. How does this help the game? If three officials are needed to call the game, then one hopes one of the three is seeing things correctly. It is only in the last ten years that basketball at the amateur level has gone to three officials. Before that, it was only two. But I suppose I'm talking to the wall.
Maryland improves to 17-3 overall and 6-2 in the Big Ten. Iowa dropped to 16-4 overall and 7-1 in the conference. Iowa was the last unbeaten team in conference play before tonight. Now they are tied for first place with Indiana. The Hoosiers lost to Wisconsin on Monday. Both Indiana and Iowa are 7-1 in the Big Ten. Maryland is just one game back, again. Iowa plays next on Sunday, at home in Iowa, against Northwestern. Maryland, on the other hand, goes to Ohio State on Sunday. The Terps just played the Buckeyes on January 18, and won the game, 100-65. The game worries me for a lot of reasons. Thad Motta is a very good coach. Ohio State did not like losing like they did in College Park. The Terrapins will have to play much better in Columbus than they did in their last road start in East Lansing if they expect to sweep Ohio State.
As I post this tonight, Michigan State is beating up on Northwestern in Evanston. Chris Collins gdt the Wildcats off to a gaudy start in the non-league portion of the schedule. And now, after the Spartans beat Maryland on Saturday night, the genius class at ESPN is saying that the Spartans are back. Fortunately, former Connecticut Coach Jim Calhoun was the analyst and he said there are five Big Ten teams, including Maryland, that could win the national title. Calhoun noted that "Maryland could beat any team in the country."
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