Maryland’s first NCAA Tournament game in two years did not disappoint, as the four-seeded Terps got the job done and advanced to the Round of 32 with a statement win over the 13-seeded Grand Canyon Lopes.
The nerves showed early for an in-experienced Maryland starting five in terms of March Madness experience, with four turnovers on their first six possessions. The Lopes took advantage of the slow start for Maryland jumping out to an early 5-0 lead until Julian Reese finally found a bucket for the Terps.
Both sides struggled from the field, making a combined three shots through the first media timeout. GCU started 2/9 from the floor while Maryland started a cold 1/6. Neither team could create any sort of separation, but the Lopes had a narrow 7-4 with 13:39 in the first half.
Maryland finally garnered momentum after the slow start, Reece got the scoring started for the Terps with 6 points. It wasn’t until Ja’Kobi Gillespie knocked down a transition three to give Maryland their first lead, followed by a Rodney Rice mid-range moments later. Maryland’s 9-0 run into the second media timeout gave them an 11-7 lead.
Reese continued his hot start, knocking down four of his first six shots, and had 8 of Maryland’s first 15 points. He cracked double-digits on a nice look down low courtesy of a Gillespie dish. The Terps led 20-12, and Grand Canyon called a timeout as they could feel Maryland starting to find some serious rhythm.
Out of the timeout, the Lopes couldn’t find much of anything on offense, shooting a miserable 5/22 to start the game. Maryland, however, continued their big run with six straight points out of the timeout, four of which came from Deshawn Harris-Smith, who’s been a massive question mark on what offensive value he brings to the table all season long.
The six straight made the score now 26-12, and the Maryland run now 11-0. Maryland, after missing two of their first 12 shots, knocked down 10 of their next 11 from the floor. Head Coach Bryce Drew had no other choice but to call his second timeout, as the Crab Five steam engine was at full blast.
A Tyon Grant-Foster broke the scoreless drought for the Lopes, but nothing was stopping Maryland on offense. Gillespie hit the nastiest step-back three from the corner that he’s hit all year, and extended the Terps lead to 20, at 33-13.
The Lopes finally started to find some rhythm in the final four minutes of the half on back-to-back Grant-Foster threes. Yet again, Maryland responded, and this time made history in the process.
Selton Miguel, who struggled against Michigan in Maryland’s previous game, knocked down a three to bring the score to 39-22. That three-point basket gave Miguel the single-season Maryland record for most three point makes in a season, at 273. For a first-year transfer in his final year of college basketball, Miguel has put his stamp on Maryland basketball permanently.
Maryland’s only red flag statistically in the first half was their inefficiency from the charity stripe, shooting 4/9 from the line. Grant-Foster was the saving grace for the Lopes in the first half with 16 points including a three at the buzzer, sending both teams to the locker room with a 42-28 lead with the Terps on top.
Grand Canyon shot 28% from the floor with no one scoring more than three points outside of Grant-Foster. If it was not for him, this game would have gotten much more ugly in the first half. For the Terps, their 51.5 clip from the floor catapulted them out to their big lead that reached up to 20 points in the first half. Outside of making free throws, the only halftime adjustment that needed to be made was a way to stop Grant-Foster any way possible.
Grant-Foster opened the scoring in the second half, getting the Lopes off to a good start. GCU continued to stick around after cutting the lead from 20 to 14 to end the first half. Maryland held up their end on offense in the second half as well, and benefitted from three forced turnovers before the first media timeout in the second half, hanging onto a 49-34 lead.
The Lopes impressively were winning the rebounding battle at the 13:28 mark in the second half of the game, but just could not hit shots when they needed them. For Maryland, they continued to struggle mightily from the free throw line, especially Queen and Reese. Both Maryland and Grand Canyon went three minutes and 51 seconds without making a basket in the middle of the second half. Regardless, Maryland slowly but steadily expanded their lead, and hit the 11:36 media timeout with a 55-36 lead.
The field goal drought continued to grow for the Lopes, whereas Gillespie broke the drought with a finish at the rim. Grand Canyon however continued to struggle and went over six minutes without a field goal. By this point, Maryland had complete control of the game, with a 21 point lead and just over seven and a half minutes remaining.
The game at this point was all but over, and Maryland was only playing the clock as they looked ahead to the Round of 32 matchup against Colorado State they earned with this dominant win. The Lopes had no answer offensively outside of Grant-Foster, who had an outstanding game of his own. For Maryland, four out of the five Crab Five members reached double-digits, which as the nation’s highest-scoring starting five shocked no one.
Head Coach Kevin Willard was proud of how his team overcame a nervous and shaky start and pulled out a dominant win, even with all the noise. Speaking of the “noise”, for Willard, it has as much substance as white noise regarding this situation at hand behind the scenes.
“There's no situation. The only situation is you guys and Twitter. And I can't control you guys and I can't control Twitter. So there's nothing -- I talked to these guys, these guys know exactly what's going on, I've been open with them, I've been honest with them, they know exactly what's going on. I can't control you guys. Whatever I say you're going to write whatever you want to say any ways, that's why this is a ways of my time. We have a website that's like might as well be TMZ, so I can't do anything about it. I can't do anything about Twitter, I can't do anything about what's going on. I can handle what I can handle. We were focused. I'm excited to be here, I'm excited to be with these guys. There's nothing else to talk about. You guys just write whatever the hell you want to write, I don't give a shit, I really don't. I'll probably get a letter from the NCAA on that one.”
Safe to say, his focus is on the dance.
The production from Maryland that no one saw coming that showed out today was Harris-Smith providing his best scoring output of the entire season with a season-high 11 points, including a late three that got the entire bench fired up. For reference, he had not score a single point in the previous 10 games for the Terps.
The DHS scoring outburst surprised many, but of course not Willard, who’s been so impressed with the leadership that Harris-Smith has displayed all year long.
“DeShawn has been, he's been steady all year and he's been a great leader. I think these guys will all say it, I'll never forget the Indiana game, I asked if these guys wanted to come out and there was about seven minutes left and DeShawn was the one who said, Hey, no, Coach, keep them in. They got it rolling, we're there with 'em. He has grown tremendously as a person, although the year hasn't gone as good as he wanted, I think he's really grown and I think he's just going to, he's stepping into, he's starting to figure it out, he's starting to become the player that he knows he can be, because he's been a great leader all year.”
There’s been so much outside noise around Maryland Athletics, with Athletic Director reportedly accepting the same position at SMU earlier today, along with rumors that Villanova is pursuing Willard for their head coaching vacancy.
Reese and the rest of his teammates were well aware of the rumors and noise, but as he put it, coming together as a family is what helps in times like this.
“Staying together like a family. It's not like this is the first time that somebody has been talking bad about us or talking negatively and it's been distracting such as things like that off the court. So I feel like we're kind of used to stuff like that and we just stand as a family and we know what's up with us, so we just keep doing that. We're good.”
Maryland showed what many Terps fans already knew, which was this team can compete with anyone in the country. The Terps now look ahead to the #12 seed Colorado State Rams, who beat the five-seed Memphis Tigers in their first round matchup in upset fashion.
Outside of a lackluster free throw shooting today, the performance was flawless for Willard’s bunch. The 32-point victory was the largest margin of victory in March Madness for Maryland in program history.
The road to San Antonio now continues into the Round of 32.
By: Oliver Schaack
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