COLLEGE PARK — One of Maryland men’s basketball’s best performances of the young season still was not enough to pull off the upset.
The Terps tagged No. 2 Michigan with only its second halftime deficit of the season, but the Wolverines outscored Maryland by 23 points in the second half to escape with a 101-83 victory Saturday night before an announced 16,675 at Xfinity Center.
The Terps (6-5, 0-2 Big Ten) suffered their fourth defeat in the past five games with the lone glimmer occurring in an 89-63 win against Wagner on Dec. 2. They dropped their first two games against conference foes for the first time since the 2020-21 squad opened its league schedule with four consecutive losses.
In their previous four setbacks, Maryland was outclassed early. The team fell behind, 11-0, in a 70-60 loss to Georgetown on Nov. 7, 32-11 in a 100-61 spanking by No. 8 Gonzaga on Nov. 25, 24-7 in a 105-72 clobbering by No. 12 Alabama, and 28-11 in an 83-64 romp by Iowa on Dec. 6.
Against Michigan, however, the Terps played some of their most inspired basketball. They came out firing, shooting 55.6% from 3-point range (10 of 18) to keep pace with the Wolverines in the first half.
“We were excited,” coach Buzz Williams said. “Red out, sell out, No. 1 team in the country in every way that’s meaningful and some that are not. They’re the best team, and I thought we executed the plan at a very high level. I understand we lost, but I thought there was a lot of traction from the bench, from the floor.”
Redshirt junior shooting guard Myles Rice said that he and his teammates were not intimidated about facing one of the top teams in the nation.
“They put their shoes on the same way we put our shoes on,” he said. “I believe our practices are top in the country. We go through everything we need to in order to prepare ourselves for the moment, and we’ve got to believe that we’re meant to be at Maryland in Xfinity Center playing the No. 1 team in the first Big Ten game at home. We’ve got to believe that all of these things are meant for us. I think we showed outstanding belief tonight.”
The offense, which finished the game at 51.9% behind the 3-point line (14 of 27), was paced by graduate student point guard David Coit. The Kansas transfer scored 22 of his game-high 31 points in the first half when he shot 66.7% from long distance (6 of 9) and 53.8% from the field (7 of 13). For the game, he amassed six rebounds and three assists.
Coit credited his teammates with finding him in open spaces on the floor.
“My shots don’t just come from me,” he said. “It comes from everybody that’s on offense, everybody doing what they’re doing and everybody being on the same page. I think we’ve just got to do a better job of making sure that everybody is on the same page.”
Rice came off the bench to score 12 of his 15 points in that opening stanza. But Coit and Rice were the only Maryland players in double digits in scoring.
The team missed the presence of senior power forward Pharrel Payne, who injured his right leg when Wolverines graduate student small forward Yaxel Lendeborg rolled backward into it with 4:36 left in the first quarter.
Payne, who needed assistance from freshman power forward Aleks Alston and a trainer to limp off the court and into the locker room, did not return to the game. He finished with seven points, four rebounds, three blocks and two assists in 15:17 of court time.
After trailing 2-0, the Terps went on a 10-3 burst over a 1:40 span to take a 10-5 lead. When Michigan answered with a 12-2 run in 2:11 to assume a 17-12 advantage, Maryland responded with a 13-8 spurt to tie the score at 25 midway through the half.
On a few occasions, the Wolverines retook the lead, but the Terps fought back. Michigan’s final lead of the frame occurred at 41-39 with 3:35 remaining, but Coit scored eight consecutive points in a 1:04 stretch to lift Maryland to a 47-43 advantage that the team would turn into a 50-45 margin at halftime.
The Terps had been 4-0 when leading at the break.
Maryland sandwiched 3-pointers by Coit and senior small forward Elijah Saunders around a layup by Lendeborg to relish its largest lead of the game at 56-47 just 72 seconds into the second half.
But the Wolverines refused to give up. They employed separate runs of 8-0, 7-0 and 7-0 to overtake the Terps, 69-63, midway through the frame and then used a 9-0 burst to balloon their advantage to 88-73 with less than seven minutes to go.
In addition to Payne, Maryland lost senior small forward Solomon Washington early in the second half after picking up two technical fouls. He was assessed a technical foul with 12:10 left in the first stanza after making a 3-pointer and then gesturing to the Michigan bench and then collected his second just 75 seconds into the second after barking at and making contact with Michigan senior shooting guard Nimari Burnett.
Washington left the game with three points and two rebounds. Just as importantly, his ejection sapped the Terps of another member of a frontcourt tasked with trying to contain 7-foot-3 junior center Aday Mara, 6-9 sophomore power forward Morez Johnson Jr. and the 6-9 Lendeborg.
Lendeborg paced the Wolverines with 29 points, nine assists, seven rebounds, three blocks and two steals. Mara added 18 points, three assists, two rebounds and two blocks, and Johnson Jr. chipped in eight points, six rebounds and three blocks. Junior point guard Elliot Cadeau racked up 12 points and 10 assists.
Coach Dusty May was impressed with his team’s perseverance against Maryland.
“I thought the first half, they played really good basketball, and obviously, their shot making was at a really elite level,” he said. “It was a night where we had to counter their shot making with our shot making to hang around until we were able to get our defense ignited, and we got contributions from a lot of guys.”
Michigan (10-0, 2-0) is enjoying its best start since the 2020-21 campaign when that squad went 11-0 and punctuated that opening by capturing the Big Ten championship and advancing to the NCAA Tournament’s Elite Eight. But Lendeborg said he thinks the difficulty of Saturday’s game will accelerate the team’s development.
“This was something we really needed as Big Ten play is starting — just getting the feel and especially with how well we’ve been establishing ourselves as a team,” he said. “So this was a very good test for us.”
Have a news tip? Contact Edward Lee at [email protected], 410-332-6200 and x.com/EdwardLeeSun.