Maryland basketball falls 74-61 to No. 12 Nebraska despite late lead

Chase King
20 hours ago
3 min read

After leading with 10 minutes to go, Maryland’s promising game was scorched as Nebraska ignited on an 18-3 run, which buried the Terps chances.

Maryland Men’s Basketball went on the road to the No. 12 Nebraska Cornhuskers, where they lost their fifth straight ranked Big Ten game, 74-61.

Maryland entered the game winning three of its last five and would be facing its best opponent since it lost to No. 12 Purdue by 30 on the first of February.

Nebraska had lost only four games, two of them in its last five games, and entered the game with the fifth-best defense according to KenPom.

Well, the start of the game was dominated by both defenses as neither team could buy a bucket, let alone a good look.

Nebraska was held scoreless for the first 5:43 of the first half, but Maryland wasn’t able to take advantage as they scored only six points in that period.

The poor offense would extend for most of the first half as Maryland started 4-of-18 from the floor and Nebraska started 3-of-14.

A lot of Maryland’s struggles came from Nebraska’s mix of defensive looks, which caused them to settle for a lot of three-point attempts. The Terps finished the first half 9-of-26 on field goal attempts, but 18 of those attempts came from behind the arc.

“I've tried to explain it to our guys [...] because of how they play defensively, you're going to shoot more threes than you typically shoot,” said Head Coach Buzz Williams.

Nebraska’s offense would get hot, making 7 of their last 10 shots of the first half. That would be enough for them to take a 33-27 lead into the half.

Maryland’s offense would have its best stretch in the opening of the second half as Elijah Saunders made a pair of three-pointers, and Andre Mills would start to get going after a slow first half.

Saunders ended the game with 15 points on a career high five made three-pointers.

Maryland would storm back from the six-point halftime deficit to lead by three points with just over 10 minutes to go. But Maryland’s offense would go stagnant as Nebraska turned the game on its head.

From 11:27 to go in the second half to 4:22 remaining, Maryland would shoot 1-for-9 from the field as Nebraska took over the game with an 18-3 run.

Eight of the nine field goals from Maryland came from behind the arc, as Nebraska would collapse on anybody driving to the rim. Diggy Coit was 1-of-4 in that stretch while Darius Adams and Saunders combined to go 0-of-4.

Coit struggled against Nebraska, only shooting 2-of-9 for six points while ending with a -25 plus-minus in his 19 minutes.

Nebraska found a lot of success in that stretch on offense from behind the arc and from the free-throw line. The Cornhuskers ended the second half 5-of-14 from three and 10-of-11 on free throws.

“From a fouling standpoint, according to this, we fouled them twice as many times as they fouled us,” said Williams.

“It's just hard when you play a top-ten team on the road. If you don't shoot as many balls and you don't shoot as many free throws, it's just difficult math to overcome,”

Andre Mills continued to carry a big load for the offense, as he once again led the team in scoring with 19 points, with 16 coming in the second half.

Mills still looks like he is adjusting to playing with such a high usage rate, as he once again had four turnovers. He finished the win against Washington with four turnovers and had three in the loss before that at Northwestern.

The Terps continue to struggle with turnovers, as they finished the game with 11, with many of them coming in crucial moments down the stretch.

“I thought we had too many turnovers, even though it was a semi-low turnover rate for our team,” said Williams.

Maryland will now return home for a rematch against the Rutgers Scarlet Knights on Sunday at 12 p.m. EST.

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