Maryland was on the cusp of their third win over a ranked team on Sunday afternoon against Purdue, but a no-call on the game’s final possession stole the headlines from arguably Maryland’s most exciting game of the season.
In a game where Maryland led for 26 minutes and as many as 12 points, a 13-0 Purdue run midway through the second half essentially leveled the game as neither team ended up leading by more than three points over the final nine minutes. It was Fatts Russell who would lead Maryland in points (24), rebounds (9) and assists (6), but Donta Scott and Russell combined for 12 of Maryland’s final 13 points in a back-and-forth contest down the stretch.
After Russell knocked down a pair of free-throws to cut the lead to 62-61 with 8.1 seconds remaining, an unforced Purdue turnover on the inbound play gave the Terps one final chance to pull off the road win. Despite Russell shouldering the offensive load all day, the final play was designed for Donta Scott as he dribbled across the baseline to the rim and was met by Mason Gillis and Trevion Williams, leading to a questionable no-call as Purdue clinched a one-point victory.
Manning said postgame that the final play call for Donta was the correct designed play. “That's exactly what we drew up,” Manning said. “Like I said, the view that I saw…yeah, I thought there was some contact.” Even forward Donta Scott believed he was fouled on the final possession.
“I just don't think they made the right call,” he added. “They can step up and blow their whistle when they should have but at the end of the day, can't control that.” Russell added that Donta suffered a cut on the final play that resulted in a no-call. “I didn't really have a good look towards the play, but you know, our coaches the rest of our team just felt like he got fouled,” Russell added. “He has a mark on his eyes, so he had to get some type of contact.”
Despite the loss, Maryland arguably put together their most complete game of the season and it came when veteran guard Eric Ayala was unavailable due to injury. Manning added that Ayala approached the interim head coach in pregame warmups and admitted “he didn’t feel right, didn’t feel comfortable,” missing his first game of the season. “Health and safety and well-being is the first thing at the forefront of our mind, and we'll get some test run and we'll make sure that we can give him peace of mind with the evaluation, the medical evaluation and we'll go from there.”
Maryland is 6-1 this season when Ayala scores 20 or more points and the veteran sits fourth in the Big Ten in three-point field goals made (58), but Sunday’s effort showed the positives from a team that’s been through turmoil under the microscope all season.
“Every game that you play, you can find most of the time one or two things that you can build upon,” Manning added. “We'll go back and watch film, but we'll be able to find a few things that we can create momentum from this game and just have to figure out a way to do it every possession and get the outcome that we want, which is a win.