WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – After receiving a jump pass from junior guard Eric Ayala at the top of the arc, sophomore striker Donta Scott used a false taunt to ward off his defender and then stormed the runway. He fired from the free-throw line, leaping into the air at full strength to hit a Connecticut defender with a powerful one-handed slam.
Huskie striker Adama Sanogo scored a tray on the other side, but the men’s basketball in Maryland was not at all intimidated. The bright lights were on, and this time, it was Aaron Wiggins’ turn. The junior guard cut the paint, took a pass from senior Darryl Morsell and fired towards the basket for a dunk of his own to increase the Terps’ lead to 13.
Maryland entered the game on Saturday as the lowest seed of a first round clash at the NCAA Tournament for the first time under coach Mark Turgeon, chosen by almost all college basketball experts to falter. But the team found their rhythm to play with confidence, which allowed them to stand firm against an attempt by UConn to recover towards a 63-54 victory.
The first round match was expected to be a defensive slugfest, but Maryland’s attack would not be stopped. The Terps hit 51.2% of the field and 50% of the depths, destroying Connecticut’s defense.
Almost all college basketball experts across the country chose the Huskies to win this one, and the opening minutes of the game gave a look at why.
Connecticut had full control of the exchanges from the start, grabbing four consecutive offensive rebounds before draining a triple to take a 3-0 lead. All of the Huskies’ first seven points came in second chance attempts, with the Terps struggling to equip the defensive plates.
Junior guard Eric Ayala allowed the Terps to stay ahead despite these difficulties. He came out of the burning gates to score eight of Maryland’s first 10 points, doing so in a dazzling way, without missing a single shot.
The Terps played with a blunt defense, allowing only the Huskies to make five of their first 18 shots from the ground, but that didn’t make much of a difference on the box’s scoreboard due to their poor table performance. In the time limit for the under-12 media, Maryland only had a 13-11 lead, after allowing UConn nine points for a second chance on 10 offensive rebounds to start the competition.
However, the dismal recovery performance did not do much damage to the Terps, as they did it across the track.
While the first half continued, so did Ayala’s heroic game. He was a man on a mission, he didn’t intend to slow down anytime soon. After UConn took the lead 19-18 with just under eight minutes remaining, Ayala easily drained a deep three after a pass from Darryl Morsell to put his team back in front. And they never left.
This was the last half-guard bucket for the junior guard, who has been out for the past four and a half minutes with two fouls. But as the Terps’ confidence grew, other players also started to get into their rhythm.
In the next possession, after an ugly rebound to the ball after a missed shot by UConn, Hart again had a crucial pass, kicking the ball to Aaron Wiggins, who drained a triple to give the Terps a 28-19 lead.
The streak was part of a 10-0 run from Maryland, but the real catalyst for that period was his fierce defense, which forced Connecticut to miss eight consecutive shots in the middle of a 4:06 drought.
While the Huskies failed to go offensively, their top scorer, James Bouknight, struggled to get on the right track. The Terps fired the projected lottery choice every time he entered the painting, with the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year in Morsell also not making it easy for him on the perimeter.
UConn’s top scorer took just 7 points from 3 of 11 shots in the first half, with Huskie’s attack stopped for most of the first 20 minutes of play. The team only pitched 23.1% of the field and 33.3% from outside the arc, with Maryland’s scoring attack seeming completely on pace, led by Ayala’s 14 points in the first half of the game, taking a 33- 22 going to the locker room.
The 75% Terps mark in the depths was more than Connecticut had allowed halfway through the season, with its previous record of 61.5% allowed in Georgetown on March 6.
Ayala’s winning streak lengthened as he returned to action to start the second half. He drained consecutive jumpers in the first two minutes of action, extending Maryland’s lead to 43-29 before Scott and Wiggins’ monstrous dunks.
The Terps led by up to 14 points, but the Huskies, who had fought offensively during the match, started to climb their way back into the competition in the second half.
UConn used an 11-3 run over 6:37 to reduce Maryland’s lead to five, with just under three minutes remaining, with Maryland needing a quick response to end its first round competition. And he did just that over the final 2:36, with four free throws converted from Ayala and Morsell increasing the gap to 57-48, allowing the Terps to depend on their defense to cross the finish line.
Three things to know
1. Eric Ayala was electrifying. To start the game, Ayala had eight of the first 10 points of the Terps, but did not stop there. The guard ended the night with 23 points hitting 8 out of 14 from the field, 3 out of 5 from the bottom and 4 out of 4 from the lane. In his 32 minutes on the court, Ayala grabbed four boards, assisted and stole the Huskies’ ball three times. Whenever the Terps needed him most, Ayala sparked the impetus for the team. In the final seconds of the game, Ayala took the ball to Hakeem hart to increase Maryland’s lead by just six points.
2. The painting game was quite uniform. Although UConn has the size advantage over undersized Terps, Maryland has managed to stick to the paint on both ends of the floor. Although the Huskies totaled 18 points in the painting, the Terps placed 24 on their own, including several in some kidney-ratting dunks.
3. Maryland faces Alabama 2 seeds in a row. With the victory, The Terps are expected to play Crimson Tide in the round of 16 on Monday. Maryland seems to switch to Sweet Sixteen after falling short at the 2019 NCAA Tournament.