SPOKANE, WASHINGTON — Terrapins men’s basketball coach Mark Turgeon turned into a human pogo stick midway through the second half Sunday. When guard Rasheed Sulaimon lofted an alley-oop pass to center Diamond Stone, Turgeon leapt off the ground in concert with Stone.
On the next possession, the Terps bounded back down the court in transition before Sulaimon dished to forward Jake Layman for a two-handed slam. Turgeon left his feet with Layman. And on the next possession, Turgeon began bouncing up and down as guard Melo Trimble pulled up for a transition 3-pointer.
The Terps’ first 15 long balls had been off, but it was as if Turgeon sensed Trimble wouldn’t miss the 16th. He didn’t. Turgeon screamed and pumped his fist in celebration as Hawaii took a timeout. The Terps went on a 9-0 spurt in just 59 seconds to take a seven-point lead, their largest of the night with 9:35 left.
The No. 5-seed Terps would eventually push the run to 14-0, a season-saving sequence. They held on the rest of the way to knock off No. 13-seed Hawaii, 73-60, in the Round of 32 at Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena. With the victory, the Terps advance to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2003 and will play the NCAA Tournament’s No. 1 overall seed Kansas on Thursday.
“We are on top of the world,” center Diamond Stone said.
Trimble led the way for the Terps, finishing with 24 points. The sophomore did most of his damage at the free-throw line where he went 13-for-14. As a team, the Terps went 28-for-31, sealing the game at the charity stripe. Stone (14), Sulaimon (14) and Layman (10) all joined Trimble in double figures.
The second-half run was needed in large part because of an inauspicious start. With just under 13 minutes left in the first half, Stone tried to secure a defensive rebound with no one around. The ball slipped through his grasp, as Stone looked on helplessly.
Guard Rasheed Sulaimon threw his hands behind his head in disbelief. It seemed like nothing was going right for the Terps in the opening eight minutes. Moments later, forward Damonte Dodd committed a careless foul about 70 feet from the basket. Sulaimon scrunched his face in disgust. The frustration was mounting.
“We were nervous,” Turgeon said.
So Sulaimon, the team’s veteran leader, brought his teammates together in a huddle. He urged them to calm down. Their season was on the line.
“I just felt like I had to get on the guys a little bit,” Sulaimon said. “I pointed to my head a couple of times and told them to be smart.”
The huddle proved to be the first turning point in the game. When the Terps took the court after the under-12 media timeout, they scored on 10 of their next 11 possessions and eventually took a lead into the locker room.
For the first eight minutes, the Terps had looked the underdog, missing eight of their first nine shots. But they settled in after the timeout. Stone powered a two-handed dunk on the first possession when play resumed, and the Terps kept going back to the 6-foot-11 rookie. Including the slam, Stone scored 10 of the Terps’ next 12 points, giving them their first lead of the game with eight minutes left in the first half.
“Tonight we showed a toughness that we haven’t shown all year,” Layman said.
They would need to flex their muscle again in the second half, though. The Rainbow Warriors took a two-point lead with 11:22 left and the crowd, pulling for Hawaii, was growing louder. “Let’s go Bows” chants engulfed the arena as a section of Hawaii supporters fanned the court with green banana leaves.
Minutes later, they were silent as Turgeon’s shoes smacked into the hardwood after he jumped into the air on three straight possessions. The Terps were putting the game away.
“We got the spark we needed and we wasn’t going to let up,” forward Robert Carter Jr. said. “We had all the momentum.”
The Warriors wouldn’t get closer than 10 the rest of the way.
As the final buzzer sounded on Hawaii’s season, Trimble walked toward the bench smiling and pumping his fist. He embraced reserve guard Andrew Terrell as Sulaimon shook his jersey to the contingent of Terps fans behind the bench.
Then Turgeon, finally relaxed, walked beyond the bench. His Alma Mater — No. 1-seed Kansas — awaited him, but first he needed to celebrate.
So he found his two youngest kids, Leo and Ella, and hugged them. He kissed his wife Ann. And he embraced his oldest son, Will. The season was still alive.
