Coach Mark Turgeon cheers on his team during the Terps’ 2014-15 season.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — As the 3-pointers came raining down at Assembly Hall on Thursday night in a matchup of Big Ten frontrunners, so did the noise. A packed crowd overwhelmingly clad in Indiana red erupted with each of the three shots the Hoosiers drained from downtown in the opening four minutes of a nationally televised contest against the Terrapins men’s basketball team.
No. 23 Indiana’s hot shooting put the No. 13 Terps in a sticky spot. Not only was coach Mark Turgeon’s squad contending with a team that had taken little time to find its offensive groove, but the Terps also had to block out an intense and involved crowd from the get-go.
They never could quite slow things down. The Hoosiers kept shooting, a raucous audience kept roaring, and Indiana handed the Terps an 89-70 loss in an electric atmosphere at Assembly Hall.
The Terps entered the night with the Big Ten’s best field goal percentage defense, but the Hoosiers made 60 percent of their shots from the field and 68.2 percent of their 3-pointers in a resounding win.
“You just got to take it for what it is and you just got to say, ‘It was their night tonight,’” forward Jake Layman said. “When a team can’t miss, it’s hard to guard them. And I mean, that’s how it was.”
Chants of “o-ver-rated” rang through the arena as Indiana (15-4, 5-1 Big Ten) built an 18-point lead with more than five minutes remaining in the contest. Led by guards Yogi Ferrell (24 points) and James Blackmon Jr. (22 points), the Hoosiers had four players score at least 15 points and cruised all night.
Meanwhile, Layman’s 13 points lead the Terps (17-3, 5-2), who shot 50.9 percent from the field but couldn’t keep up with Indiana.
“I don’t know if this is a wake-up call,” Turgeon said. “Indiana was terrific. They were just great.”
Wednesday afternoon Turgeon and his players suggested Indiana’s smaller and quicker lineup wouldn’t lead to mismatches in its favor. Rather, Turgeon figured his longer and versatile group could give the Hoosiers fits on both ends of the floor.
From the game’s onset, however, the Hoosiers had the upper hand. After drilling its first three 3-pointers, Indiana found success slicing to the rim and getting into the lane en route to shooting 48 percent from the field in the first half.
Then in the second half, the Hoosiers shot 72 percent from the field and 82 percent from three.
“Our close outs were bad and just our toughness to guard the ball wasn’t there when it needed to be,” Turgeon said.
The Terps couldn’t use their size to negate the Hoosiers’ efficient scoring attack, either. In fact, Indiana won the rebounding battle despite starting a 6-foot-6 center to counter 6-foot-11 Terps big man Damonte Dodd.
Even after the Terps climbed out of their early deficit behind aggressive play from Jake Layman and a shooting display of their own — the Terps hit 5 of 11 3-pointers in the first half — Indiana delivered another blow to start the second half.
The Terps, who trailed 38-35 at halftime, turned the ball over on two of their first three possessions out of the locker room, and the Hoosiers opened the half on a 6-0 run. From that point on, coach Tom Crean’s Indiana squad seemed to have an answer each time the Terps made a stab at a comeback.
“They made three layups in a row, and all of a sudden [the lead] is nine instead of three,” Turgeon said. “It changes pretty quickly there. If we could have started the half better, maybe it would have been a different game.”
Moments after guard Melo Trimble buried a 3-pointer in transition to score the Terps’ first points of the second half, Ferrell hit his own three over Trimble. Several minutes later, with the Hoosiers holding an 11-point advantage, guard Dez Wells hit a corner three to trim the lead to eight and draw a response from the Terps’ bench.
Again, though, Ferrell responded by netting a shot from the top of the key to zap any momentum the Terps may have generated.
“They were really good, they shot the ball really well,” forward Evan Smotrycz said. “I feel like they could have beaten anybody tonight.”
With about 40 seconds remaining and the shot clock winding down, Ferrell chucked up one last three, and like so many before it, the point guard’s last attempt trickled through the net.
Then, as it did often Thursday night, the crowd exploded into a final cheer to cap Indiana’s thorough triumph and the Terps’ worst loss of the season.
“We were a step behind them all night defensively,” Turgeon said. “They kept going and kept making shots.”
