CHICAGO -- For the third year in a row, No. 21 Maryland (22-10) has been eliminated from the Big Ten Tournament after losing its first game. The Terps’ 69-61 loss to Nebraska (18-15) March 14 is the fifth straight postseason defeat for head coach Mark Turgeon’s team.
“We weren’t very good today,” Turgeon said. “I’ll just be real with you. And Nebraska I thought was terrific, especially when they needed to be with the shot clock going down. They made a lot of shots. We just never had it. We made mistakes defensively throughout the game. We let our offense affect our defense. We couldn’t make a shot. We couldn’t handle the double-team. So there was a lot of things we didn’t do very well today. And because our offense was so bad, it affected our defense in some real big stages. But we never quit. We tried. We had a couple of opportunities late. We cut it to five I think, but they just made big plays so give them credit. They deserved to win. They were much better than we were today.”
Maryland couldn't gain a lead after the first three-and-half minutes of the game and First-Team All-Big Ten selection Bruno Fernando was only able to come up with three points in 35 minutes. Fernando did record eight rebounds and three blocks, but did not attempt a shot for the last 13 minutes of the game.
“It’s not that Bruno wasn’t scoring,” Turgeon said. “They doubled him every time. It was that we didn’t make them pay for what they were doing. And that was the disappointing thing. And then Bruno is usually good for a couple of offensive rebounds and putbacks and he couldn’t get them today. So the ball didn’t bounce our way a lot either. It was one of those days, but we have to be able to overcome it. But we had a lot of guys, a lot of coaches, a lot of people who didn’t do well today. So that’s why we lost.”
The biggest difference in Thursday’s game was that Nebraska’s top players made plays while Maryland’s didn’t. Fernando struggled throughout and didn’t receive much help from his running mate in the frontcourt Jalen “Stix” Smith, who was coming off of a game in which he had 19 points and 11 rebounds but was only able to post eight points and five rebounds in 24 minutes against the Cornhuskers.
Terps junior point guard Anthony Cowan Jr. got his offense going late, finishing with 18 points to go along with four rebounds and four assists, but he was virtually absent in the first half with just one point and one field goal attempt.
Conversely, the Cornhuskers received a big lift from their red-hot leading scorer and senior guard, James Palmer Jr., who netted a game-high 24 points after scoring 30, 27 and 34 in each of Nebraska’s last three games. Cornhuskers senior point guard Glynn Watson Jr. also turned in a nice performance with 19 points and junior forward Isaiah Roby finished with 15 points, six rebounds, and three blocks.
“We weren’t in it today,” Turgeon said. “We weren’t mentally into it. We just didn’t play well. I can’t explain it. I’m disappointed. The players are disappointed. But we just did not have it, couldn’t get it going. And if we did for a minute or two we couldn’t sustain it. There are a lot of things that just didn’t go our way and we didn’t play well. And I think Nebraska deserved to win. I thought they played well. I thought they were into it. I thought their two best players made plays when they had to and they deserved to win. I’m happy for Tim [Miles].”
A turning point in the game came with just over eight minutes to go in the second half when Turgeon got a technical foul after he thought Terps guard Darryl Morsell, who led his team with 14 points, was fouled after a steal and layup that would have cut deficit to seven. Watson Jr. made both of his free throws to make it 11-point lead for Nebraska, and Maryland never seemed to fully recover.
“I just got on the floor too much,” Turgeon said. “I shouldn’t have done it. I thought Darryl got fouled but they didn’t and that’s really what matters. I shouldn’t have gotten the technical.”
As a team, Maryland shot just 36 percent from the field and didn’t have its typical aggressive on the boards. The Terps will now have at least a week off until their first NCAA Tournament game and they’ll wait to find out who their next opponent will be until the brackets are released on Sunday.
Turgeon will look to inspire his team in the meantime and hope for a much better performance from his squad than it delivered against the Cornhuskers.
“We’re in the NCAA Tournament,” Turgeon said. “It has been a heck of a year for us. We have the fourth-youngest team. We’ve played, I heard, the eighth-toughest schedule. We’ve overcome a lot. We’ll overcome this. We just didn’t play well today and we’ll get ourselves ready to go and hopefully play better in the NCAA Tournament.
“We’ve bounced back all year in a lot of situations. I plan for us to do the same thing. We’re going to have extra practices now, obviously that we didn’t want. I think the game experience would have been a little bit better for us than practices. We practiced well this week. That’s the thing that’s tough for me right now. So we have to get our minds right moving forward. We’re going to be excited when our name pops up (on the bracket) and we’ll be against a really good team so we’re going to have to play a lot better than we did today to win.”
