The Terps picked up their seventh win in eight games in dominant fashion.
No. 25 Maryland men’s basketball stumbled at points early Sunday night against Iowa, but the 101-75 final score would hardly indicate that.
The Terps put together a performance for the ages in the second half against the Hawkeyes, cruising to the seventh win in their last eight games and heavily strengthening their case for a bump in Monday’s Associated Press top-25 poll. JBR Bracketology now projects Maryland as a lock for March Madness.
Here are three takeaways from Maryland’s Sunday night blowout.
Red-hot streaks led to historic offensive output
Maryland’s 101 points Sunday night wasn’t just its third 100-point performance of the season. It was the most points it’s scored against a Big Ten opponent since joining the conference in 2014, and just the second time it’s eclipsed 100 points in conference play since then.
That came despite multiple noteworthy cold spurts, especially in the first half. But for each one of those, there was a red-hot stretch to make up for it.
The Terps came out of the gate as efficient as a team can be, draining their first seven attempts from the field — including three gusty 3-pointers from Selton Miguel. But Iowa went step-for-step with them, only trailing by as much as nine points in the first half, which it shrunk to a one-point deficit in less than two minutes.
Maryland’s second-half hot stretch got it the lead back and put the game out of reach for good. Rodney Rice started it off with an 8-0 run on his own, giving the Terps the lead, before the team around him put together 15-2 and 16-1 runs in relatively quick succession.
“Sometimes you got to give college kids a little bit of benefit of the doubt that they’ll figure it out,” head coach Kevin Willard said. “This team’s figured it out.”
The Terps were far from perfect, particularly early on. They turned the ball over an uncharacteristic 11 times in the first half. But hot streaks like that create room for error, and Maryland had more than enough of that.
Vastly different defensive halves
The Hawkeyes led by four at halftime after a dominant 51-point performance in the opening 20 minutes. They scored 24 points in the final 20 minutes. Maryland’s second-half performance was arguably its second-most dominant half of the season, only trailing its historic showing against Ohio State in December.
The Terps initially struggled to keep up with Iowa’s offensive pace, one of the fastest in the country among high-majors. The Hawkeyes pushed the floor rapidly — exacerbated by the flurry of early Maryland turnovers — and caught the Terps out of position on defense repeatedly. That led to frequent wide-open looks, both down low and beyond the arc.
But the adjustments Willard made at halftime worked. Iowa, who entered the game averaging the most points per game in the Big Ten (84.5), stalled entirely in the final 20 minutes.
“I loved the way we switched out in the second half,” Willard said. “Our pick-and-roll defense was much better in the second half than the first half. It was good adjustments by the guys.”
The Hawkeyes were a dismal 11-of-37 from the field and 0-of-13 from 3-point range to close out the game. They struggled to find the easy shots that were in abundance early on, and couldn’t establish the pace they thrive in due to physical Maryland defense.
Make no mistake about it, the Terps are an elite defensive team at their best. And that bodes well for the postseason.
Another starter-dominant game
A blowout to this degree usually means the winning team’s bench gets a chance to shine. Not in College Park.
No bench player saw the court for more than 12 minutes, and only one — Jordan Geronimo — scored a point. He had six in the second half, breaking a bench scoring drought that had lasted over three full halves. Tafara Gapare, Maryland’s top bench scorer on the season (4.5 points per game), returned to action Sunday after missing the team’s previous two contests with an illness. But he was limited to just four minutes and didn’t attempt a shot.
It’s hard to draw too many negatives from a 101-point performance. Every starter scored at least 16 points, while Julian Reese and Derik Queen both notched double-doubles.
“We all score a lot of points, the starting five,” Gillespie said. “They can’t double team or overhelp, so we help each other out.”
But it’s worth considering how sustainable this style of rotation is for Willard. Maryland is the only Big Ten team with all five starters averaging at least 27 minutes.
There isn’t a clear scoring option off the bench, or even a clear pecking order on who comes out first. Of that group, only Gapare and Deshawn Harris-Smith average at least three points. If a starter gets hurt in the final month of the season, Maryland has a drastically different look entering March.