In a year of upsets, Maryland's loss at Minnesota is still a stunner
Maryland began Thursday night within a half game of first place in the Big Ten. Minnesota hadn't won even once since mid-December.
Surely the sixth-ranked Terps had no problem handing the hapless Gophers their 15th straight loss, right? Well, not exactly.
Minnesota earned its first conference victory of the season at the expense of the Big Ten preseason favorite, surviving a furious rally from Maryland to emerge with a stunning 68-63 victory. The Terps roared back from a 12-point second-half deficit to take a short-lived one-point lead with three minutes left, but their momentum faded in a hail of errant shots and damaging turnovers from point guard Melo Trimble.
He air-balled a jumper that could have given Maryland the lead with two minutes to go. He dribbled too deep into traffic and stepped on the baseline one possession later. Most costly of all he threw the ball away again in a one-point game with 27 seconds to go after Jake Layman had just stolen it for the Terps.
Trimble's nightmarish final two minutes are emblematic of his recent struggles. The one-time All-American candidate is 6-for-37 from the floor in his last three Big Ten games and he tallied as many turnovers as assists Thursday night.
With Trimble slumping badly and freshman center Diamond Stone suspended, Maryland didn't have its usual firepower available. Not even 28 points from Rasheed Sulaimon could prevent the Terps from suffering a rare loss in a tight game.
Maryland falls to 22-5 overall and 10-4 in the Big Ten, a full game behind league leaders Iowa and Indiana. The Terps still have a chance to win at least a share of the league title, but it won't be easy considering that road games at Purdue and Indiana still remain.
That a loss to Minnesota could cost Maryland is astonishing considering how bad the Gophers (7-19, 1-13) have been this season. This is a team that lost to South Dakota and South Dakota State in December, fell by 24 and 25 points in two games against Northwestern and suffered a slew of close losses to other Big Ten opponents.
Minnesota turned that around Thursday by burying seven early 3-pointers to get out to a lead, by playing solid defense and by getting to the foul line late in the game when their shooting turned cold. The final nine points the Gophers scored all came via free throws.
Maryland becomes the fourth highly ranked team to fall since Wednesday night, joining Iowa, North Carolina and Oklahoma. Each of those losses were surprises, yet none were quite as shocking as what transpired in Minneapolis on Thursday night.
In a chaotic, unpredictable college basketball season riddled with upsets, Maryland's loss to Minnesota may have been the most unfathomable outcome yet.
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
