A potentially significant win slipped through Maryland men’s basketball’s grasp.
Armed with an eight-point lead late in the first half, the Terps were outscored by 16 points the rest of the way in an 80-72 setback at No. 23 Virginia on Saturday night at John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Maryland (6-6) dropped its third game in a row and fifth in its past six outings. The program lost for the ninth time in its past 10 meetings with the Cavaliers (10-1), a former Atlantic Coast Conference rival who won their fifth consecutive game.
Graduate student point guard David Coit scored all of his team-leading 15 points in the second half for the Terps and racked up six assists and three rebounds. Redshirt junior shooting guard Myles Rice amassed 12 points and four assists, while senior power forward Elijah Saunders contributed 10 points and three rebounds in his return to Virginia, where he spent his first three seasons before transferring to Maryland.
But the Terps missed the presence of 6-foot-9, 250-pound senior power forward Pharrel Payne. The team’s leader in both points per game (17.5) and rebounds (7.2) did not play after suffering a right knee injury in the first half of a 101-83 loss to No. 2 Michigan on Dec. 13.
Virginia was paced by graduate student shooting guard Dallin Hall’s game-high 20 points, six assists and three steals. Graduate student shooting guard Jacari White came off the bench to compile 15 points and three steals, and graduate student small forward Devin Tillis scored 10 points off the bench.
Here are three developments from Saturday’s outcome.
The game turned early in the second half
Trailing 24-19 at halftime, Maryland gave up the first four points of the second half, and it seemed like the outcome would be decided early in the frame. Then it embarked on a 16-5 run to take a 35-33 lead with 14:43 remaining on a pair of free throws by Coit.
But the Cavaliers scored 10 unanswered points in a 2:06 span for a 43-35 advantage. After Saunders sank a jumper to end a 2:46 drought for the Terps, Virginia scored five straight points for an 11-point gap at 48-37 with 11:08 to go that would be its largest of the game.
Maryland tried to chip away at the deficit, leaning on Saunders, who scored 10 points in the second half. But Hall erupted for 18 points and White for 12, and that pair helped power the Cavaliers to respond to every comeback attempt and keep the Terps at bay long enough to emerge with the victory.
“There were stretches again I thought tonight when we were playing in that direction,” Maryland coach Buzz Williams told analyst Chris Knoche of the Maryland Sports Network. “We gave ourselves a chance. Some of the things that have plagued us all year long seem to be some of the mountains we couldn’t overcome. So we’re going to keep trying.”
Virginia capitalized on Payne’s absence
Without Payne, Maryland relied on an undersized starting frontcourt of the 6-8, 240-pound Saunders and the 6-7, 220-pound small forward duo of Solomon Washington and George Turkson Jr. That played right into the Cavaliers’ hands.
Virginia countered with 7-0, 238-pound freshman center Johann Grunloh and 6-9, 238-pound freshman power forward Thijs De Ridder. The team also brought 7-0, 245-pound senior center Ugonna Onyenso and 6-7, 240-pound Tillis off the bench.
Although De Ridder finished with five points – which was more than 11 points lower than his team-leading average of 16.1 points – three of the four rebounds he grabbed were on the offensive glass. Grunloh collected a game-high eight boards (five offensive) to go along with six points, and Tillis and Onyenso scored 10 and seven points, respectively.
The Terps, who entered the game ranked 12th in the 18-team Big Ten in rebounds per game at 36.5, actually outrebounded the Cavaliers, 41-34. But the latter pounded Maryland in the lane, delivering a 44-12 explosion in the paint.
Williams picked out the silver lining, saying, “We had a plan for their offensive rebounding. We did a good job offensive rebounding.”
While Virginia finished the game shooting 45.5% (30 of 66), the offense was better inside the 3-point line, converting 50% (23 of 46). The Terps’ lack of size in the middle figures to be a point of vulnerability when they dive into conference play after the new year.
Turnovers continue to trip up Maryland
The Terps’ 12 turnovers in the loss to Michigan seemed like a sign they had turned the page. That optimism was short-lived.
Maryland turned the ball over 19 times to the Cavaliers, who committed just eight giveaways. Virginia converted the Terps’ gaffes into a 22-12 discrepancy in points off of turnovers, and the Cavaliers stole the ball 15 times from Maryland, whose previous worst in that department was 12 in setbacks to Gonzaga on Nov. 25 and the Hawkeyes.
The Terps’ inability to prevent the Cavaliers from taking away the ball loomed as a game-shifting development to Williams.
“The thing that hurt us again was our turnover rate,” he said. “But those things are all correlated. Some of our breakdowns came from, we didn’t get a shot, which led to a broken floor, which led to a made 3[-pointer], which led to a foul.”
With 18 turnovers in an 83-64 setback at Iowa on Dec. 6, Maryland has given the ball away at least 18 times in two of their last three games. It has finished a game with 17 turnovers five times.
Some of the Terps’ giveaways were the result of poor decisions with the ball. Protecting the ball should be a note of concern for Williams.
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