Doing his best superhero impression as he wore a mask to protect his fractured face, senior guard Darryl Morsell was the hero for Maryland (7-6, 2-5 Big Ten) Jan. 10, as the Terps went into Champaign and escaped with a 66-63 road victory over No. 12 Illinois (9-4, 5-2). The win was Maryland’s second over a ranked opponent this season and ended a three-game losing streak for the Terps.

“Obviously I’m really pleased with my team,” Maryland head coach Mark Turgeon said. “We really battled tonight down Eric Ayala. They’re a great basketball team and a team that I think can be a Final Four team and we just battled. It felt like Maryland basketball out there. We had a really tough film session after the Iowa game and the guys responded and it’s good to see. They believed they were going to win and we changed a lot of things in our philosophy and I think it helped us.”

Morsell netted a team-high 19 points to go along with four rebounds and three assists. He saved his best for last as the Baltimore native’s biggest bucket was a strongly contested layup with 33 seconds left in the game to give Maryland a 64-61 lead.

“He’s everything,” Turgeon said of Morsell. “He’s the heart of this team. He’s everything for us. So hopefully we can keep him healthy and hopefully he can continue to lead this team.”

Morsell not only gave Maryland its biggest lift on the offensive end, he also was the Terps’ most key defender on Sunday night, being billed with the task of guarding Illinois leading scorer Ayo Dosunmu. Dosunmu still finished around his season average with a game-high 23 points, but it took him 23 shots to get in what was one of his more inefficient games of the season.

“He’s a great player,” Morsell said of Dosunmu. “I’m not even sure what he had, but I’m sure he ate a lot tonight too. My job was to make it as tough as possible for him and just win. I go out there to win. I”m not worried about no stats, no numbers, none of that. I knew at the end of the game the ball was going to be in his hands so I just tried to make it as tough as possible for him.”

Aiding Morsell in his scoring efforts were his teammates Donta Scott and Aaron Wiggins, who scored 16 and 12, respectively. Scott, who led the way in the first half with 11 points, also ripped down a team-high eight rebounds and had two blocks on Sunday night. Scott’s blocks were two of seven that Maryland had in the game.

Starting in place of junior point guard Eric Ayala, who sat out the meeting with the Fighting Illini because of a groin injury, sophomore Hakim Hart filled the void well and finished with nine points and five rebounds against Illinois. The Philly native’s biggest shot of the night, and perhaps of his college career to date, was a three with 1:18 left in the game to give the Terps a 62-61 lead.

“Hakim Hart played 30-plus minutes at the point. Did a great job tonight offensively and defensively and hit the big three,” Turgeon said.

With Ayala out of the game, Hart and his teammates stepped up all facets of their game, which translated to holding Illinois to just 41% shooting and five three-pointers total.

“[Ayala] is a great player and a big part of our team so when you lose someone like him everyone has to step up to a certain degree whether that be energy, whether that be guys on the bench, whether that means scoring on offense, rebounding, or making plays,” Wiggins said. “So with Darryl [Morsell] and the help of our leaders we were able to go in with the mindset of doing whatever it takes to win.”

Illinois center Kofi Cockburn had a solid night with 21 points and 10 rebounds, but it wasn’t enough to get his team the win as the Terps put on one of their grittiest efforts of the season.

“It just shows our potential,” Wiggins said. “It just shows our toughness. And it was a great win for us.”