COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Down 18 at halftime, Maryland (9-8, 3-7 Big Ten) brought the score within three in the second half against No. 14 Wisconsin (13-4, 7-3) Jan. 27, but the Badgers were too much in the end for the Terps, as they escaped College Park with a 61-55 victory.
“You’ve got to give my guys credit. They battled, cut it to three,” Maryland head coach Mark Turgeon said after the game. “But when we made a mistake they made us pay and that’s what good teams do. When they made a mistake, we didn’t necessarily make the shot. We weren’t at our best. Give them credit. They were good, they had a great first half and [Micah] Potter was really good for them tonight.”
Badgers senior guard Micah Potter led all scorers with 23 points to go along with his game-high 12 rebounds. He did most of the offensive work for Wisconsin, but was aided by 13 points from his teammate D’Mitrik Trice, who also crashed the boards hard and ripped down eight rebounds.
Besides the two strong efforts from Wisconsin’s leaders, Maryland played pretty strong defense throughout the game against the Badgers, particularly early in the second half.
The Terps held Wisconsin to 39% shooting overall and to just 23 points after halftime. Wisconsin wasn’t able to score a field goal for the last seven minutes of the game but its 38-point first-half explosion mixed with a poor shooting night by the Terps was too much for Maryland to overcome.
“Our defense (in the second half) was terrific, but we have to do it for 40 minutes to win,” Turgeon said.
Although the Badgers got the better of the Terps Wednesday night, Maryland looked much better in the second half of the game as its defense came alive. The Terps outscored Wisconsin 35-23 after halftime, much in part to 16 second half points by junior wing Aaron Wiggins.
“Just knowing the way we’re capable of playing going into the locker room at halftime, we all knew that we hadn’t played up to our potential and we knew we had to be better on the defensive end and get better shots on the offensive end,” Wiggins said. “So it was just a matter of us locking in and playing a little better knowing that we have to focus on the details and we can play a lot better.”
Wiggins was joined by Donta Scott (13 points) and Darryl Morsell (11) as Maryland’s only double-digit scorers against the Badgers. The rest of the Terps’ offense struggled mightily, especially junior guard Eric Ayala, who shot 1-for-10 from the field and scored just 4 points a game after scoring a team-high 21.
“We just have to have more guys play better,” Turgeon said. “We can’t have guys go 1-for-10 coming off of a game where they make shots.”
After cutting the lead to three, Maryland allowed the Badgers to go on a 14-2 run that busted their lead right back open.
“I think we just lost our groove,” Wiggins said. “We just stopped guarding and lost a little bit of effort on the defensive end. And we began to go shot for shot with them instead of continuing to get stops on the defensive end.”
Although the Terps clawed their way back in to make it respectable in the end, the big runs and timely plays by Wisconsin prevented Maryland from earning the season sweep. Maryland will look to get back in the in column in its next outing Feb. 2 in College Park against Purdue.
