The Maryland men’s basketball team won in a nail biter in their first road game of Big Ten conference play. And it was not pretty. There were several moments in last night’s 92-91 Maryland win over Illinois where the Terps should have lost. During two moments last night I said out loud “The Terps just lost this game.” Then Christmas came early for Mark Turgeon’s squad on these two absurd plays.
The first play was the Kevin Huerter turnover with 42 seconds left to go.
Let’s break this down second-by-second: it starts with the inbounds play in which Maryland clearly wants the ball in Anthony Cowan’s hands. Met with a double-team, Cowan had one clear motive; it is football Sunday let’s see how fast these suckers can fall.
Aghast, the crowd goes wild for a charging foul when I have not seen a flop like that since I went fishing over the summer, R.I.P. summer 2017.
Then Dion Wiley catches the pass and gives it to Huerter who is dribbling down the court like a mad man and could have slowed the ball down passed half court in a one point game, but I digress.
The most heart breaking moment about this part of the play was how wide open Jackson was as he starts to cut to the hoop right as Huerter begins to lose the ball.
Tre’Jon Lucas has the game in his hands, all he has to do is chew the clock and get to the foul line to increase the Fighting Illini’s one point lead. But instead this happens:
Can’t say I have ever tried to throw an alley hoop to two guys, or have I actually ever seen two players go for the slam like this, but jeeeeeeeeeez.
LOL
Play number two: Just moments after the egregious no-call on an Anthony Cowan drive, Illinois has perhaps one of the worst turnovers ever in the history of ever.
With 4.6 seconds, all Illinois has to do is inbound the ball. That’s literally it. Maryland at this point has no timeouts, and assuming Illinois hits at least one free throw, Maryland’s hopes would lie in a half court heave with about 2.5 seconds to go. But instead, we have this masterpiece.
This is just awful, his teammates did nothing to help out this poor inbounder, and the Illinois player just wanted to be #elite so he looked like 2017 Joe Flacco trying to throw the deep ball.
And then Bruno Fernando became the hero we all deserved after a night that toyed with our emotions.
