Maryland men’s basketball’s Friday night thriller against No. 15 Marquette came down to the wire. After star guard Kam Jones missed both free throws already up two points, Terps’ guard DeShawn Harris-Smith had a chance to tie the game at the line after being fouled on a layup attempt.
But the sophomore missed both free throws.
Golden Eagles guard Stevie Mitchell then sunk two free throws of his own to ice the game. In its first true test of the season, the Terps battled it out with the Golden Eagles, but lost, 78-74.
“I think this is why you play these early-season tests, and you’ve got to see where you’re at,” head coach Kevin Willard said. “[Marquette’s] a good basketball team, extremely well coached.”
The first five minutes was a back-and-forth affair. The Terps opened up a quick four-point lead, courtesy of two Ja’Kobi Gillespie’s aggressive drives to the rim and a Derik Queen putback slam. Gillespie and Queen each finished the game with 24 points.
But the fiery Maryland (3-1) home crowd didn’t slow the Golden Eagles — particularly Jones. He started 3-of-3 from the field, scoring seven of Marquette’s (4-0) first 10 points.
The Terps had a few concerns early, primarily turnover-related. They gave the ball away six times in the first 10 minutes, while the Golden Eagles only did so once. Maryland also started 1-of-8 from 3-point range, mirroring some of it woes from its first three contests.
“We had six turnovers that were unforced,” Willard said. “[We] have some guys and some transfers that haven’t played in an environment like this, it’s good to kind of see how they react.”
But it wasn’t all bad for the Terps. In a stretch spanning more than three minutes midway through the first half, Maryland held Marquette to 1-of-10 shooting.
Still, points were almost equally as hard to come by for the Terps. After Marquette broke its scoring drought, Maryland found itself in one of its own, which lasted more than two minutes.
Then a sequence broke the half open.
First, Harris-Smith scored back-to-back layups. Then after a stop on the defensive end, Gillespie nailed a 3-pointer, giving the Terps a four-point lead and igniting the crowd.
After almost a full half of balanced basketball, it felt like Maryland had seized the momentum. It finished the half 6-of-7 from the field and headed to the locker room with a 34-30 lead.
Queen marked the start of the second half with a bang, flushing a dunk down after a missed Marquette shot on the other end. He scored the Terps’ first four points of the period.
“[For] Derik to play 35 minutes and be as effective as he was, I thought was phenomenal,” Willard said.
Then, it was Marquette’s turn to catch fire. Around the 13-minute mark of the second half, it embarked on a 7-0 run on 3-of-3 shooting to take the lead, while the Terps failed to score for more than two minutes.
But the tide continued to turn both ways — the theme of the game. Maryland was more prolific from 3-point range in the latter half, hitting five threes. Rodney Rice was especially potent from deep, ending Maryland’s second scoring drought with a 3-pointer, and later reclaiming the lead with another with nine minutes remaining.
The two offenses could barely be stopped in the second half, trading buckets and keeping fans’ heads on a swivel as the play quickly transitioned from one end to the other.
With four minutes remaining and down five points, Maryland burned its last timeout of the game. For a moment, a comeback in the final minutes seemed possible. Harris-Smith and Gillespie hit back-to-back 3-pointers, and the team forced a 5-second in-bounds violation and a turnover. But with the opportunity to knot things, the Terps ultimately couldn’t get the job done.
“Just now feel like we’re definitely getting better as a team, just learning how to play off each other,” Gillespie said.
Three things to know
1. Derik Queen gave the Terps a serious boost. The freshman phenom had a substantial impact for Maryland Friday night, scoring a career-high 24 points on 9-of-13 shooting to go along with seven rebounds. He also tied for the team’s most playing time, logging 36 minutes.
2. Kam Jones matched Queen’s output, and more. Undoubtedly the star of the Golden Eagles, Jones has led Marquette is scoring in each of the last two seasons. He was the engine of its offense Friday, finishing with 28 points — 18 of which came in the second half.
“Kam was phenomenal,” Willard said. “He just kind of played like the first team All-Big East player that he is.”
3. Poor shooting down the stretch. In the final five minutes of the match, Maryland embarked on a 1-of-8 shooting stretch and missed a number of key free throws.
