With a little less than four minutes left on the clock Tuesday, Georgetown led Maryland 65-56. This game was over.
The Hoyas had gotten their revenge from a year ago, defeating Maryland in the second year of a ‘rivalry renewed,’ home-and-home series between the two schools.
Until they didn’t.
Despite being down nine points with just over two minutes left, down seven with a minute left, and down five points with 19 seconds left, the Terps miraculously stole a win, defeating Georgetown 76-75 at the Verizon Center.
For the last ten minutes, the Hoyas had the lead. At the under-eight minute timeout, Georgetown was up by four. At the under-four timeout, they were up by nine.
But the Terps never gave up, and their resiliency willed them to a victory.
With 19 seconds left, the Terps were finally able to make the contest a one-possession game for the first time under-nine minute mark. Freshman guard Anthony Cowan knocked down two free throws, and cut the Hoya lead to three.
On the ensuing inbounds play, Georgetown forward Rodney Pryor caught the ball, but two Terrapin defenders trapped him in the corner. The Terps forced the travel.
All of a sudden, the Terps were given a chance to tie a game that should have been iced minutes ago.
Before the Terps could inbound the ball following the turnover, Hoya forward Isaac Copeland fouled Cowan. The freshman hit two more free throws to cut the lead to just one.
After Hoya point guard Tre Campbell knocked down two free throws with 17 seconds left to extend Georgetown’s lead, Terps’ star Melo Trimble found the lane for an easy layup to cut the lead back to one.
Then history repeated itself. Despite Turgeon screaming at his team to foul, they didn’t and Campbell stepped out of bounds after catching the ball. Miraculously, the Terps had a chance to take the lead with eight seconds left.
“This is how crazy basketball is,” head coach Turgeon said. “I’m yelling ‘foul’ at the top of my lunges. We don’t foul on the double-team, he dribbles out. We don’t foul again – he steps out of bounds. We were very fortunate.”
After freshman Kevin Huerter couldn’t find any Terp open to inbound the ball to, Trimble sprinted to the backcourt to catch the pass. Hoya guard L.J. Peak jumped to contest the pass, and fouled Trimble in the act.
Trimble would knock down the two free throws, and then Huerter would block a potential game-winning shot, as the Terps snuck out of Verizon Center with a victory.
“I recruited him as a shot blocker,” Turgeon said of Huerter, jokingly. “Kevin’s a winner. Kevin didn’t stop.”
The Terps scored 17 points over the course of their last eight possessions without one empty trip. The Hoyas only scored five points over that same span.
“We just spread the floor and put [the ball] in Melo’s hands,” Turgeon said. “He’s the best in the country at going downhill [into the lane]. I don’t want to make it a Melo show 35 minutes into the game. Maybe I waited a little but to long, but we had to space the floor.”
The referee’s whistle dominated the rivalry game. In the first half, the whistle was blown 17 times on Maryland and 12 times on Georgetown. In the second half, the story was the same.
Maryland was called for 15 more fouls in the second half, compared to Georgetown’s 12.
Georgetown shot an exceptional 37-42 from the charity stripe, as almost half of their points came from the free throw line. Despite all the fouls, the Terps defense played well, holding the Hoyas to just 34 percent shooting in the second half.
“It was hard for both teams,” Turgeon said on the fouls. “I think a lot of our fouls was because Georgetown has such good players. They’re hard to guard; they’re athletic, big, fast.”
This fresh-looking Terps team is going to need time for chemistry to form, but Tuesday’s victory shows the resiliency of the team and their ability to pull out a tough victory.
The trio of freshman – Cowan, Huerter, and Justin Jackson – stepped up for the Terps. They combined for 34 of the Terps 76 – led by Jackson’s 17.
“We just kept fighting,” Trimble said. “We played with a group of freshman that have never been in that environment before, and for them to go out there and play the way they did and step up, it was very special.”
