Rasheed Sulaimon’s bounce-back game guides Terps over Northwestern

EVANSTON, ILLINOIS — Moments after the Terrapins men’s basketball team escaped with a 70-64 comeback win over Penn State on Wednesday, Rasheed Sulaimon approached coach Mark Turgeon.

“[Sulaimon] said, ‘I’m going to give you more offense at Northwestern,'” Turgeon said Saturday night after Sulaimon rebounded with a 16-point night to help the No. 4 Terps top Northwestern, 72-59.

The senior guard posted a season-low one point and was a non-factor Wednesday, but Sulaimon said he was feeling it during warmups Saturday. After he watched a pregame shot strike twine, he just wanted to forget his 0-for-5 shooting performance days prior.

So after the Terps (13-1, 2-0 Big Ten) missed their opening three field goals, Sulaimon looked for his own shot. He pulled up for a deep jumper just inside the arc. It was the start of a perfect 5-for-5 first half.

For much of the night, Sulaimon was dancing toward the backcourt after drilling a jumper or feeding a teammate. After making his third 3-pointer of the opening period, Sulaimon shuffled back down the court, spinning once as he pointed three fingers toward his head late in the first half after drilling a 3-pointer. He then looked out at the purple-clad crowd packed into Welsh-Ryan Arena and let out a roar.

“I knew it was going to be a big game,” Sulaimon said. “They are 13-1 prior to this game, second Big Ten game trying to establish our position in this conference.”

Sulaimon wasn’t alone in leading the Terps. His own hot shooting stroke allowed his running mate, Melo Trimble, to shoot his way out of a slump.

The Big Ten Preseason Player of the Year missed his first four shots — all from behind the arc — but went on to score a game-high 24 points despite not registering a basket until the 8:40 mark in the first half.

“I think Coach Turgeon had more confidence than I had in myself,” said Trimble, who went 3-for-15 against Penn State. “He told me to just keep shooting like I did against Penn State and just stay positive. I mean I knew I’d hit shots. I was getting wide open looks — shots I normally make — I just had to let the game continue to go.”

Trimble scored 17 of his 24 points in the second half, and he caught fire from beyond the arc, going 4-for-5 in the final 20 minutes. Perhaps his biggest long ball came when the announced 8,117 fans at Welsh-Ryan Arena were at their loudest.

Northwestern was on an 8-1 run to cut the Terps’ lead to 14 with about 12 minutes still left. Then Trimble elevated from NBA range with Wildcats defenders surrounding him.

The building fell silent.

“Their heads went down and they said we probably won’t be able to come back and win after that one,” Trimble said. “It was a big shot.”

With the Terps wielding a double-digit lead for the final 27 minutes of play, the backcourt duo often bounded back on defense finding each other for a high-five. In addition to being the top two scorers on the team, they combined for 14 assists.

The scare at Xfinity Center three days prior had grown to be nothing more than an afterthought.

“We knew we were lucky to win the other day against Penn State,” said Turgeon, who earned his 100th win with the Terps on Saturday. “I didn’t really say a lot.”

He didn’t need to. The Terps came out with something to prove at Welsh-Ryan Arena. They committed just one first-half turnover while playing lockdown defense in the opening period.

The Terps forced eight first-half turnovers, swatted away six shots and held the Wildcats (13-2, 1-1) to just eight field goals en route to a dominating 40-20 lead.

“We were as good defensively as we’ve been,” Turgeon said.

The stifling defense paired with the shooting and passing of the Terps’ backcourt proved to be too much for Northwestern to handle.

Sulaimon had forgotten his one-point game before the opening tip. Trimble would find his deft shooting touch late in the first half. And the Terps simply refused to let a second straight conference game come down to the final minutes.

They had been telling each other that since Wednesday.

“We said to ourselves, ‘We’re now in the Big Ten, and that’s going to be tough,'” Trimble said. “‘Every game is not going to be a cakewalk. There is no more cupcakes or anything like that. We just have to go out there and play basketball.'”