Maryland men's basketball suffers second half blowout in road loss vs. Illinois

Ahmed Ghafir
37 minutes ago
2 min read

In an arena the Terps have enjoyed plenty of success over the last seven seasons, head coach Buzz Williams wasn’t able to guide his team to do the same after falling back in the loss column after an 89-70 loss at Illinois on Wednesday night.

Andre Mills led the way and tied his season-high with 16 points, one of three Terps to finish in double figures. Diggy Coit added 15 points to finish in double figures for the fourth time in five games, while Solomon Washington added 13 points in 25 minutes after avoiding an apparent injury in the first half.

Early on, it would be Coit to once again serve as the spark for Maryland’s offense after scoring nine of the team’s first 15 points, helping build an early four-point lead five minutes into the game before the Illini answered back. Maryland would punch back once more after Myles Rice, who went scoreless in a season-low seven minutes vs. Penn State, drilled a three to spark a 9-3 run over the next six minutes, giving hope to a potential fight on the road.

But that went out the window after Maryland went cold, scoring just four points the rest of the way as the Illini’s 23-4 run over the final 7:58.

Andrej Stojakovic, son of former NBA sharpshooter Peja, led the way for the Illini with 16 points on four made threes at the break with Maryland trailing 47-30 at halftime.

Maryland’s deficit only grew through the second half with the Illini comfortably leading by 20 for all but 43 seconds over the final 15:26 in transition before Andre Mills and Myles Rice teamed up to end the game on an 8-0 run.

Maryland returns to action on Saturday against tenth-ranked Michigan State for a noon tipoff, the second of three consecutive games against ranked opponents.

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