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Maryland men’s basketball falls to Michigan State, 61-59, for 4th loss in 5 games

edward lee, baltimore sun
·5 min read

COLLEGE PARK — If Maryland men’s basketball truly left everything on the floor in Wednesday night’s down-to-the-wire, three-point loss at Northwestern, it forgot to save something for Michigan State.

The Terps fell into a 15-point hole midway through the first half and then ran out of gas after mounting a stirring comeback in the second half in a 61-59 loss to the visiting Spartans on Sunday afternoon before an announced 15,103 at Xfinity Center.

The setback was the fifth in a row for Maryland (11-8, 3-5 Big Ten) to Michigan State and ended a 22-game winning streak at home against unranked opponents. That had been the third-longest active streak in Division I, trailing No. 3 Kansas’ 64-game run and Virginia’s 23-game streak.

The Terps committed a season-worst 18 turnovers, including 10 in the second half. The Spartans gave the ball away just eight times, which contributed to them earning a 19-7 advantage in points off of turnovers.

“It’s hard,” Maryland coach Kevin Willard said. “You watch film and their first 10 minutes, they always jump on you. They jumped on us there last year. Until you’ve kind of gone against that speed — and we only played them once — even Jahmir [Young] and those guys, it just takes you by surprise a little bit. When you’ve played against them a couple times and you’ve seen it a couple times, you’re used to it. It just took us a while unfortunately to kind of just get used to their speed.”

Young, a fifth-year senior point guard who had a game-high 36 points in that 72-69 setback to the Wildcats, paced the Terps with 19 points and four assists but made just 6 of 15 shots and committed a game-worst seven turnovers.

Much like that game at Northwestern, Young had a chance to either win the game or send it into overtime when he collected a defensive rebound with three seconds left. But the ball was poked out of his hands and Michigan State sophomore center Carson Cooper collected the loose ball as the horn sounded.

Junior power forward Julian Reese, a Randallstown native and St. Frances graduate who is their second-leading scorer at 13.6 points per game, earned his ninth double-double of the season on 10 points and 12 rebounds and blocked three shots. Reese’s six offensive rebounds helped the Terps finish with nine offensive rebounds to the Spartans’ two but they managed only 10 second-chance points.

Fifth-year senior small forward Donta Scott compiled 16 points and five rebounds, backup senior point guard Jahari Long scored nine points, and freshman shooting guard DeShawn Harris-Smith added five points and five rebounds.

But that fivesome were the only players to score as Maryland lost for the fourth time in its past five games. The Terps have dropped those contests by a combined 15 points, including three by three points or less.

Meanwhile, Michigan State (12-7, 4-4) had four players reach double figures — a group led by graduate student point guard Tyson Walker’s 15 points, five assists and five steals. Graduate student power forward Malik Hall contributed 12 points and six rebounds, sophomore shooting guard Tre Hollomon came off the bench to add 12 points on 4 of 5 shooting (3 of 4 from 3-point range), and senior shooting guard A.J. Hoggard scored 12 points.

Walker scored seven points in the second half, including a 3-pointer that gave the Spartans a 61-57 advantage with 44 seconds remaining. Willard seemed to indicate that the Terps momentarily forgot the scouting report on Walker.

“Once we stopped leaving him open, we were pretty good,” he deadpanned. “We did a pretty good job of leaving him open in the first half. I thought DeShawn did a great job, and I thought [Young] did a great job with him, just making everything difficult for him. He’s a heck of a player. He hit the big 3 late, and we gave him some easy ones early.”

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The teams went back and forth through the first seven minutes of the game. But Michigan State turned a 15-14 deficit into a 29-15 advantage courtesy of a 15-0 run in a 3:51 span. Until Reese converted the second of two free throws with 8:34 left in the period, the Terps had gone 4:34 without a point. The Spartans maintained that double-digit lead for the remainder of the frame and took a 44-32 cushion into halftime.

Scott said the onus was more on what Maryland wasn’t doing than what Michigan State was doing.

“I would say it was us and us not being able to take care of the ball,” he said. “That’s what messed us up. We got good looks, and we got good shots. Some days, they just don’t fall.”

But Maryland opened the second half with a 16-4 burst fueled by eight points from Scott. When Young splashed a 3-pointer to give the Terps a 53-50 lead with 8:26 remaining, that marked their first lead since the score was 6-4.

But Michigan State responded with six straight points to regain a 56-53 lead. On two occasions, Maryland chipped away at the deficit until it trailed only by one, but the Spartans replied with timely jumpers.

The victory was only Michigan State’s second in six games thus far away from home. So securing a tough win against the Terps wasn’t lost on longtime Spartans coach Tom Izzo.

“All in all, I wouldn’t be normally satisfied except right now, we needed a road win,” he said. “Being in it for 39 years, you kind of realize that an ugly win is much better than a pretty loss, and it was an ugly win, and they deserve some credit for making it ugly. We deserve some blame for letting that 15-point lead disappear like it did. I’m just happy we got a win, and we’ll move on.”

Maryland at Iowa

Wednesday, 7 p.m.

TV: Big Ten Network

Radio: 105.7 FM