Maryland Basketball: Terps Drop Road Game against Indiana

Senior Jared Nickens provided a spark off the Terrapins bench with 12 points on 4-7 shooting from deep, but it was not enough as the Hoosiers prevailed, 71-68.

Maryland trailed for a majority of the first half, but was able to hold Indiana’s lead to just three at the halftime break.

Joshua Tomaic earned his first start, but did not make any real impact on the game. He finished with 0 points on 0-1 shooting, two fouls, and grabbed one rebound in just ten minutes of action.

This is not shocking and not much more is expected of the redshirt freshman because of the numerous frontcourt injuries that have propelled him into seeing action no one thought would happen before the start of the season.

Neither team led by more than seven points for the entire game.

Head Coach Mark Turgeon elected to use an early timeout after a 9-0 Indiana run pushed their lead to seven at 12-5.

Maryland responded out of the timeout with a Bruno Fernando layup and began trimming into Indiana’s lead.

Unfortunately, Maryland got no scoring other than Fernando out of their frontcourt players.

Senior Michal Cekovsky finished with zero points on four missed field goals, four fouls, five rebounds, and a turnover.

This put tremendous pressure on Maryland’s guards to keep them in the game.

In the second half, neither team was able to grab a hold of the lead for too long. Both teams were trading small one possession leads back and forth.

Turnovers and injuries which have plagued the Terps all season were a factor in the second half.

Fernando left the game after being fouled in the lane and fell to the ground in pain grabbing his ankle. He left to go to the locker room, returned to the Terps bench, but did not re-enter the game.

Without Fernando able to be on the floor, Indiana knew they could focus their attention on Maryland’s guards defensively, because Tomaic and Cekovsky were providing the Terps zero offense.

Sophomores Anthony Cowan and Kevin Huerter played 40 and 39 minutes respectively after Coach Turgeon was forced to keep them on the court as they were Maryland’s only and best hopes on offense to score.

Cowan finished with 18 points on 18 shots, and Huerter finished with 16 points on 6-9 shooting.

Maryland turned the ball over twice in the last three minutes trailing by only two and four points at the times of the turnovers. Huerter threw an ill-advised pass out of bounds and freshman Darryl Morsell committed a monumental mental error on an inbounds pass violation in the last two minutes.

These types of mental mistakes and turnovers are too costly for the Terps to overcome to grab a road in the conference.

Even with all the late turnovers, Maryland had a possession trailing by three to potentially force overtime in the closing seconds.

Cowan, who was 1-5 from deep on the night at the time of the potentially game-tying shot, forced up a three which clanged off the rim.

After Indiana missed two free-throws, Huerter had a prayer from half-court fall short and seal the narrow three point victory for the Hoosiers.

Unfortunately, this game and the Michigan game stand out as games Maryland needed to have to help boost their chances of making the tourney come March.

They do have huge opportunities to grab a signature win as the next two games are against Michigan State and Purdue who both are ranked in the top ten.

Maryland will look to even back up their conference record at 5-5 and avenge a prior loss against Michigan State this Sunday for a 1pm game at Xfinity Center.