INDIANAPOLIS — After Terrapins men’s basketball forward Jake Layman watched his third consecutive 3-pointer to start the game rip through the net Friday, he turned toward the bench and shrugged.
“I said to Melo [Trimble], ‘You had better run this next play for me too,'” Layman said.
The senior was in a groove, and he knew it. But that was just the beginning.
About 11 minutes later, Layman drilled his fifth triple of the first half. Trimble turned and pumped both fists, flashing a smile. The next possession was Trimble’s turn, as he hit the Terps’ ninth 3-pointer. Trimble stared down the crowd, but he couldn’t conceal his smile for long. It was that type of night in the No. 3–seed Terps’ 97-86 win over No. 11-seed Nebraska in the Big Ten quarterfinals at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.
The Terps went 9-for-10 from long range in the first half and finished 13-for-22 as coach Mark Turgeon’s squad topped the Cornhuskers in the highest scoring game in Big Ten Tournament history. It sets up a rematch of last year’s Big Ten semifinals against No. 2-seed Michigan State on Saturday afternoon.
“It was good to see us play well and execute and share the ball,” Turgeon said. “That’s more important than anything.”
The night belonged to Layman from his opening 3-pointer just 61 seconds into the game. The 6-foot-9 veteran buried another on the following possession before hitting his third long ball with 16:40 left in the half and shrugging.
His teammates couldn’t wait for him to line up the next attempt.
“Fire up another one like a heat check,” sophomore Jared Nickens told Layman.
“I told him, ‘If you’re open, keep shooting it,'” guard Rasheed Sulaimon said.
“He’s cooking right now,” forward Robert Carter Jr. said. “He’s hot right now.”
By the end of the night, Layman had buried six shots from deep, one shy of his career best, en route to a season-high 26 points on 8-for-13 shooting.
“That was the first time I seen him really light it up like that,” Nickens said.
But it was a couple crucial rebounds — not long-range darts — that sealed the Terps’ win. They watched Nebraska trim a 21-point lead to six with 1:38 left after the Cornhuskers reeled off a 19-4 run.
The Terps offense, which shot 60.3 percent, had gone cold for the first time all night. Forward Damonte Dodd drew a key foul going for a rebound with 54 seconds left, but he missed his second free throw. That’s when Layman soared in to tip the ball out and give the Terps another possession.
Layman nabbed a defensive rebound on Nebraska’s next possession to ensure the Terps would spend another day in Indianapolis.
“He was phenomenal,” Sulaimon said.
When Layman and the Terps weren’t canning triples from beyond the arc, they were feeding center Diamond Stone. The freshman turned into a human highlight reel in the first half with three tenacious dunks as part of a dominating 23-point performance.
The Terps entered the tournament losers of four of their past six games and after their most lopsided defeat of the season this past Sunday, they stressed the importance of starting new in the postseason. That meant smiling more, and there was plenty of that in the first half.
“We forgot about the regular season,” said Trimble, who scored 16 points and added eight assists. “We just moved on from that. This whole week of practice, we just talked about having fun.”
Nebraska threatened that in the final minutes after Turgeon had tried to pull his starters to get them extra rest for the semifinals. Instead, he turned to Layman again.
The senior delivered.
