Men’s college basketball
Terps blow lead, salvage win with late heroics
Until it wasn’t.
And then, with less than a second left in overtime, it was again.
A free throw by sophomore guard Anthony Cowan Jr. with 0.6 of a second left gave the Terps a 92-91 victory over Illinois.
Cowan, who finished with a career-high 27 points, saved the Terps from losing for the fourth time in five games and starting the Big Ten 0-2 for the first time since Maryland joined the league four years ago.
It also prevented Maryland (7-3, 1-1) from suffering its worst collapse in Mark Turgeon’s seven years as the team’s coach.
Leading lllinois by as many as 21 points late in the first half, by 19 at halftime and by 22 early in the second half, the Terps imploded and seemed to be headed toward an embarrassing defeat.
Only some late mistakes by the young Illini prevented Maryland from disaster. After Illinois threw an inbounds pass off the court with 4.6 seconds left in regulation, the Terps’ Kevin Huerter took a corner 3-point attempt that hit off the back rim.
There, freshman center Bruno Fernando tipped the ball in, sending the game to overtime.
It didn’t appear, however, that the Terps would take advantage of their second life.
But after Cowan and llinois graduate transfer Mark Alstork dominated the early part of the extra session, trading baskets and free throws seemingly on each possession, a 3-pointer by Huerter gave the Terps a 91-89 lead.
Alstork tied the game with a drive with 14.6 seconds left. Cowan took the ball upcourt, picked his spot and drove as the clock ticked toward expiration. He went up from about 10 feet, and with Alstork close to blocking it, forced enough contact to draw the foul.
With the raucous crowd screaming its displeasure and the clock reading 0:00, officials went back and saw that Cowan had taken the shot with under a second left. He was awarded two shots, hitting the first and missing the second.
Illinois (6-3,0-2), which lost its Big Ten opener Friday night in overtime to Northwestern, didn’t get off a final shot as the Maryland bench and Turgeon celebrated the narrow — and fortunate — road victory.
Justin Jackson scored a season-high 20 points for the Terps, and Huerter added 17.
Maryland had a season-high 25 turnovers, including seven by Cowan, who also had six assists.
Maryland went to a zone with around 10 minutes left in the first half and stuck with it for the rest of the half. After watching an early 10-point lead cut to four before a 3-point shot by Cowan made it seven, the Terps fell back in a 2-3 zone for all but two possessions the rest of the half.
The zone, a 2-3, featured 6-foot-7 Huerter at the top of it, with 6-10 Fernando in the middle, with Jackson, Cowan and either freshman Darryl Morsell (Mount Saint Joseph) or redshirt junior Dion Wiley on the wing.
Not only did it seem to flummox the Illini, it seemed to energize the Maryland transition game. On one play, Jackson blocked a shot underneath, dribbled out of the pack well past midcourt and eventually fed Huerter for a layup.
Unfortunately, the Illini figured out Maryland’s zone when the Terps went back to it midway through the second half. Unlike the first half, when the Illini clanked a bunch of 3-pointers off the rim and lost the ball dribbling into double teams, the Illini patiently picked the Terps apart.
Though Maryland hit five of its first seven shots to take a 10-0 lead, it was the defense that got the Terps off quickly, forcing five early turnovers and forcing first-year Illinois coach Brad Underwood to sub out four of his starters.
The move worked, with the Illini cutting its deficit back to four.
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