Uh oh.
The Terps lost to Morgan State tonight, 66-65, in nearly the same kind of loss which doomed the teams’ NCAA tournament hopes last season. Last winter, it was Ohio and American. Tonight at the Comcast Center, it was Morgan State, a 6-8 team from the MEAC that already has losses to the likes of LaSalle, Wisconsin-Green Bay and St. Francis (Pa.).
It’s precisely the type of loss the Terps (11-3) needed to avoid, and it came in the team’s very final nonconference game. They start league play Saturday at Comcast against Georgia Tech.
The worst part- the Terps had the game well in hand. After falling behind by two points with 18:05 left in the second half, the Terps went on an 18-2 run and were leading 54-40 at the under-12 minute media timeout.
Suddenly, it all fell apart. The zone press stopped working, any progress with the half-court offense came to a screeching halt, and Todd Bozeman’s Bears ended the game on a 26-11 run. Morgan guard Reggie Holmes scored a game-high 25 points, and hit a number of big shots. Terp guard Greivis Vasquez had a couple of contested looks down the stretch, but couldn’t convert. Vasquez went 1-9 from 3-point range, but his was the only 3-pointer the Terps hit all game.
“We didn’t run our offense properly once we had our lead there in the second half,” coach Gary Williams said. “We settled for jump shots and you know, when you shoot 1-14 from the 3-point line, that’s a good indication of, maybe you should be doing something else.”
Some of the blame for that could fall on the shoulders of Vasquez, who scored 19 points but shot 5-21 from the field. But he didn’t have a lot of help. Other than forwards Dave Neal (18 points, 9 rebounds) and Landon Milbourne (15 points and 7 rebounds) there wasn’t much support. The Terp bench was outscored 13-2.
“It’s a tough loss, and we especially didn’t want it right now,” said Vasquez, who was calm and collected after the game. “We needed to be 12-2. I can’t get down, the team needs to bounce back with Georgia Tech this weekend.”
The Terps committed 21 turnovers, and gave up 17 offensive rebounds. Morgan State only shot 4-13 from the free throw line, but their 3-point shooting (8-19) made the difference.
“We went on a little run and we got ourselves up,” Milbourne said. “But we can’t keep depending on the second half to win the game for us. If we had handled our business like we usually do in the first half, then we probably wouldn’t have the same outcome.”
The last time Morgan State beat the Terps- 1988. That year, under coach Bob Wade, the Terps went 9-20. Obviously, this team is far better than that team. At the same time, if the Terps can’t make some noise in the ACC, this might be the game that hurts them the most.
Staff writers Aaron Kraut and Chris Eckard contributed to this report
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