Iowa star Luka Garza hit the bench just over 10 minutes from the end against Maryland men’s basketball after elbowing Jairus Hamilton in the face for his third foul of the night.
The Hawkeyes were on the wrong side of an 8-3 run when he came back, less than two minutes later, but that didn’t last long. Garza ran back onto the court and immediately helped a Jordan Bohannon triple. Patrick McCaffery then scored three consecutive points to make an Iowa 9-0 run, crushing any momentum the Terps were building.
Maryland men’s basketball never seemed to be able to maintain its momentum on Thursday night, dropping 89-67 to 5th place in Iowa. The Hawkeyes used a massive 35-7 run in the second half of the first period to build a comfortable lead on the road.
“I don’t know what happened tonight, but we played really hard,” said coach Mark Turgeon. “I am very proud of this team, how hard they competed. And tonight was not there for us. “
With the defeat, the Terps dropped to 1-5 in the Big Ten game and 6-6 in the season, now with three consecutive defeats.
The Terps opened the game with energy, scoring two points out of three to jump to a 6-0 lead that forced a Hawkeye timeout just 1:38 into the competition. Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery called for time out again after Eric Ayala’s three-pointer put the Terps 17-7 with 14:17 remaining in the first half, but keeping Iowa off the scoreboard was not sustained .
“We started well to move the ball and make kicks,” said Turgeon. “They lost their heads and we never really made it and let our attack affect our defense.”
With 12 minutes remaining at the break, the Hawkeyes fed the ball to Garza on the left block, but a fast team duo forced him out to the side. While he was trying to get back to Jairus Hamilton, a masked Darryl Morsell worked to attack Garza and force a tie and timeout with the Terps up front.
Outside that time limit, Iowa returned to form. Maryland missed five shots and turned the ball three times before the next media timeout at 7:56, where the Hawkeyes maintained the 21-19 lead.
The Terps’ fights in the attack continued, as they missed 11 consecutive shots, resulting in Hawkeye’s 17-0. Donta Scott hit a three-point shot from the top of the brace that ended the scoring drought, but not the problems.
Morsell took the ball and drove 1:40 from the end of the break and deflected it from behind into the hands of Jack Nunge. The striker threw the ball to the court for Keegan Murray, who emphatically hit the counterattack.
Iowa ended the first half with a 35-7 run, winning 44-26 at the break. Maryland hit 39.3% in the first half, where 16 of his 28 shots came from a three-point rage and only four were successful. Garza led all the top scorers with 17 points from 6 of 9 shots and five rebounds in 20 minutes.
“They are difficult to protect,” said Turgeon. “It is a fantastic team, I thought we had a very good strategy that was working very well. And then we lost all moves against the zone and decided that we were not going to come back strong enough.
Aaron Wiggins worked to kick off the second half as well as the first for Maryland, when he scored Terps’ first 10 points in the second half and the Hawkeyes were kept with just two of them for three minutes.
Iowa managed to get back into shape with Joe Wieskamp hitting a tray and Garza hitting a three-point shot. As the Maryland bench screamed for his defense to stop the ball, Wieskamp cut along the base line and managed to score a foul and sink the tray.
After an 18-7 race from the Hawkeyes, Maryland tried to find some light with its own 8-3 stretch. Garza was taken off the ground after suffering his third foul in the competition – an elbow to Jairo Hamilton’s face – leaving Terps to operate more loosely.
Garza stayed on the bench for just a minute and 16 seconds before running back to start a 9-0 Hawkeye run that put this game even further out of reach.
“[Iowa’s] a great team, great players individually, ”said Wiggins. “They played with 10-11 players and everyone came and contributed to the victory. we tried to throw a couple of different defensive schemes at them and such, but they are a great team, they move the ball, well, they were able to score, and we just weren’t strong enough. “
Three things to know
1. Maryland just couldn’t contain Luka Garza. The National Player of the Year in 2020 saw double teams and attempts to slide down the entire game, but still got what he wanted. Garza had 17 points and five rebounds in the first half, including a perfect 4-in-4 shot from the free-throw line.
“Luka Garza is as good as advertised,” said Eric Ayala. “The whole team, they feed on each other. And for us, we just need to keep fighting, keep competing. “
Garza finished with 24 points, seven rebounds and four assists in 34 minutes of play.
2. Darryl Morsell came back, but he fought. The senior Terps leader returned just a week after being elbowed in the face that required surgery, but was not as usual. The Baltimore native ended the game with just three points, despite having played 22 minutes. He also had six individual turnovers.
3. Terps was unable to control the ball. Maryland struggled to achieve many things in this game, in part due to a lack of composure on the offensive side. The team committed 16 turnovers, drawing the highest total this season. The Hawkeyes took advantage of such mistakes, scoring 20 points on turnovers.
“Turnover is unacceptable,” said Turgeon. “Darryl was six, but he wasn’t himself. The turns [are] not what is good. “