The Minute After: Maryland

Thoughts on a 79-78 loss to the Terrapins:

As Indiana started losing shooters in the second half, this one felt all too familiar, a carbon copy of its loss to Northwestern on Wednesday night.

To try something different, Mike Woodson pulled out one of his least-used cards from the deck — the dreaded zone defense. Maryland felt slightly off with it to start, but the 3s kept falling. Back in man defense, Trey Galloway lost a relocated Rodney Rice on a second-chance 3-pointer, giving the Terps a 10-point lead (63-53) with 9:34 to go.

But Indiana didn’t wilt away. The Hoosiers made a game of it.

Myles Rice started making 3-pointers to counter Maryland’s barrage, hitting three key ones down the stretch. After starting 1-of-6 from the field after an 0-of-6 performance against Northwestern, Malik Reneau sprang to life, and he finally started to get buckets to fall.

The Rice and Reneau show brought Indiana back into this one. Anthony Leal nearly put them over the top. Leal played great defense on Selton Miguel, forcing him to turn over the ball via a Galloway steal. Ahead on the break, Leal ran the right side, got fouled, scored and completed the and-1 at the line to tie the game at 70-all. Myles Rice’s third 3-pointer of the half put the Hoosiers up 73-70. Another Reneau bucket gave them a 75-70 lead with 3:07 to play.

Maryland clawed back to within one with 1:10 to go before Leal did it again. This time, Reneau’s shot was blocked, but Leal picked it up, drawing another foul on a made basket and completing the and-1 again.

78-74 Hoosiers with 38 seconds to play.

Ja’kobi Gillespie scored quickly in the lane to pull the Terps within two at 78-76. Maryland then fouled Galloway to put him to the line for a 1-and-1 situation with 22 ticks left. But Galloway missed the front end, a crucial miss.

After a Maryland timeout, Gillespie drove into the lane and — probably traveled? — before he found Julian Reese. Reese handed off to Rodney Rice on the left wing, set a screen for him and he drilled a 3-pointer to put Maryland up 79-78. Indiana failed to foul when it had one to give during the mad scramble.

Indiana’s last-ditch efforts were poor out of a timeout. Its first try resulted in a pass to Reneau in the corner, which was poked out of bounds by Derik Queen. With no timeouts remaining — Woodson had used two earlier in the half to try and settle Indiana’s porous defense — Indiana’s head coach started frantically subbing. Luke Goode came in for Oumar Ballo. Mackenzie Mgbako came in for Leal. On the inbounds, Myles Rice got the ball in the corner and tossed up an airball.

Game over.

“The substitutions kind of got everybody confused a little bit,” Myles Rice said after the game.

While Reese (14 points) and Queen (seven points) have plenty of talent, it was Maryland’s guards that won the Terps this game. The trio of Rodney Rice (23 points), Gillespie (18 points) and Selton (15 points) combined to score 56 of Maryland’s 79 points and made 12-of-23 (52.2 percent) from deep.

“We did everything we were supposed to get back in the game, and we just didn’t finish,” Woodson said after the game.

After squandering a golden opportunity this afternoon, the Hoosiers have lost four of five. They sit at .500 (5-5) in conference play. The most brutal part of the season is now here: at Purdue, at Wisconsin, vs. Michigan, and at Michigan State.

With February nearing, Indiana is a middle-of-the-road Big Ten team fighting for its NCAA tournament life. It’s a far cry from the preseason projections that put them at or near the conference’s top.

Category: The Minute After

Filed to: Maryland Terrapins