In its 88-82 overtime win over Richmond, the Maryland men’s basketball team played without Damonte Dodd (concussion) for the second straight game. The Terps missed Dodd’s defensive and rebounding abilities, but coach Mark Turgeon said the 6-foot-11, 250-pound forward’s absence provided valuable opportunities for forwards Ivan Bender and Michal Cekovsky.
The duo both played at least 17 minutes, combining for 11 points and 10 rebounds as the Terps held off the Spiders to advance to the Barclays Center Classic title game against Kansas State on Saturday night.
Dodd returned in Maryland’s nail-biting win over the Wildcats, logging 13 minutes, while Bender made his three field goals and two free throws in nine minutes to finish with eight points.
But the bulk of the Terps’ frontcourt production came from Cekovsky, who scored a career-high 16 points and brought down eight boards. After missing the first four games of the season with a sprained foot, the 7-foot-1 junior from Slovakia displayed the improvement Turgeon noted in the preseason.
“He’s not even close to where he was before he got hurt,” Turgeon said after Maryland’s 69-68 win over the Wildcats. “He’s been hurt for about 10 weeks, so it was good to see. He’s got fresh legs.”
Cekovsky spent the summer in College Park, training with director of basketball performance Kyle Tarp to get stronger and working with the team’s managers to better his play on the court. His teammates recognized his progress. At media day Oct. 25, Bender said Cekovsky improved his shot and was playing with more confidence than the past two seasons, where he assumed a reserve role.
But injuries derailed Cekovsky’s preseason conditioning, starting with a hamstring injury he suffered late in the summer. Cekovsky then sprained his right foot earlier this month. His season debut didn’t come until Maryland’s fourth game of the season, a 77-63 home win over Stony Brook.
After the Terps’ victory over the Seawolves, a game in which Cekovsky scored 11 points off the bench, Turgeon said the junior had participated in only about 10 practices since the end of August.
Saturday night, Cekovsky entered the game after the first media break. A little more than a minute later, he committed a foul.
But right before the under-12 timeout, Cekovsky got on the scoreboard with a dunk, which would be a common occurrence throughout the Terps’ straight win since the start of the season.
Cekovsky started the second half after scoring six points and grabbing four rebounds before intermission, and the 250-pound big man continued to punish the Wildcats from above the rim.
Four of his five baskets in the final 20 minutes came on dunks. After one slam, “Let’s go, Ceko” chants could be heard around the Barclays Center arena. Along with guard Melo Trimble, who also scored 10 points after the break, Cekovsky help the Terps (7-0) stay in the game despite allowing Kansas State (5-2) to shoot 55.6 percent in the second half.
“We’re just happy to have Ceko back,” Trimble said. “We just know … we’re going to keep getting better with him being back and Damonte [Dodd].”
The Terps were without Dodd in their six-point win over Richmond on Friday night, and Spiders coach Chris Mooney said Dodd’s absence hurt the Terps’ frontcourt. He said the team’s other big men were “OK.”
“I think they just need to get more and more comfortable,” Mooney said. “There’s some youth that they have.”
But a night after Mooney made those comments, Cekovsky outshined Dodd in his third appearance of the season. After battling injuries the past few months, Cekovsky showed he’s capable of becoming the interior scoring presence Maryland has lacked early on in its 2016-17 campaign.
“Cekovsky was great,” Turgeon said.
