Maryland trailed by two with under 15 seconds left to play in regulation as Ja’Kobi Gillespie drove toward the basket only to be met by multiple Indiana defenders. Gillespie passed the ball to Julian Reese standing at the left elbow.
As the seconds on the game clock ticked away, Reese flipped the ball to guard Rodney Rice cutting toward the top of the key from the left corner. Rice caught the pass, took two dribbles running his man into the Reese screen, and elevated into his jump shot amidst an array of flailing arms attempting to disrupt his concentration.
Rice buried his season-high fifth 3-pointer of the game in what proved to be the game winning shot of the Terps’, 79-78, victory over the Indiana Hoosiers (14-7, 5-5 Big Ten) Sunday afternoon.
“Julian showed how much he’s come as a player,” said head coach Kevin Willard. “He didn’t try and shoot it, he just got the basketball, took one dribble, and just gave it [to Rodney] and Rod obviously hit a huge shot.”
Rice finished as the game’s highest scorer with 23 points on an efficient 62 percent shooting from the floor. The Virginia Tech transfer made eight of his 13 shots, earning 15 of his points from behind the arc.
Rice was one of four Terps in double figures joining Reese (14 points) and his fellow perimeter players Gillepsie (18 points) and Selton Miguel (15 points) as the Terps main avenues of offense.
Miguel scored 13 of his 15 points in the second half, most of them coming during a 18-13 scoring run that gave Maryland its largest lead of the game with about nine and half minutes left to play.
The scoring run provided the Terps with a ten point advantage that looked to be insurmountable for the struggling Hoosier offense, but Indiana prevailed with a run of good shooting and post play from Myles Rice and Malik Reneau.
Reneau scored eight points in 18 minutes in the second half following a battle with foul trouble that held him to just six minutes and two points in the first half.
Rice scored 14 of his 16 points in the second half with nine of them coming in the final 10 minutes of the game. The transfer from Washington State was key to erasing Maryland’s double-digit lead and even gave Indiana its first lead since the first half with a right wing 3-pointer with under five minutes to play.
“Myles Rice comes out of nowhere, you know, shooting 20 percent and just was like, he looked like Steph Curry,” Willard said.
Rice had the ball in his hands for the final possession of the game following Rodney Rice’s 3-pointer, but his attempt never reached the rim allowing Maryland to celebrate its second road win in as many games.
“[The Maryland starters] made some plays, made some big stops … so it’s just everyone, everyone made big plays,” Willard said.
The excitement of the second half resembled the first in the fact that the action was back and forth throughout.
Neither team could put together a momentum stealing scoring run through the first 20 minutes and anytime a team did string together a couple of baskets the opposition did the same on the other end.
The Terps entered halftime with a one point advantage over the Hoosiers due in part to their 40 percent shooting from 3-point range. Maryland finished with one more made three than Indiana, choosing to play more on the perimeter with Gillespie and Rice — both finished with ten points and two made 3-pointers in the first half — rather than the post.
Oumar Ballo led the Hoosiers with ten points as well shooting an efficient 50 percent from the floor. Indiana’s offensive success was a result of its pick and roll action forcing one of Maryland’s bigs into either staying home on Ballo or his counterpart Reneau on the roll or stepping up to meet the ball handler allowing easy passes to the paint.
The Hoosiers outscored the Terps 20-14 in the paint through the first half, just a couple days after Maryland scored 62 near the bucket against a ranked Illinois squad.
Indiana finished the game outscoring Maryland by ten points in the paint, but lost the 3-point battle by 15 points. The Hoosiers finished the game shooting 48 percent from the floor and 41 percent from 3-point range. Myles Rice and Mackenzie Mbako tied for the team lead in points with 16 apiece.
With the win, Maryland boosts its win streak to three games and its conference record to 6-4 — the Terps overall record stands at 16-5. Next up, the Terps return home for a one game home stand against No. 18 Wisconsin on Wednesday in the first week of Maryland’s spring semester.
