By Ben Tugendstein

The Maryland Terrapins basketball team survived a sloppy effort in Lincoln Wednesday night and defeated the Nebraska Cornhuskers 70-65. Star point guard Melo Trimble made plays down the stretch and freshman big man Diamond Stone dominated the paint for the Terps, who move to 9-2 in conference play.

The Terps started off the game shooting decently from the field – the only issue was that often they never got a shot up. Maryland committed a startling 13 turnovers in the first half. Sloppy play has been an issue for the Terrapins this year as they have lost the turnover battle badly in their three losses.

The Terps cleaned up their play in the second half, but the Cornhuskers wouldn’t back down. And despite their lackluster outside shooting, Nebraska got to the free throw line, limited Maryland’s fast break abilities, and kept the score close.

With eight and a half minutes to play, Nebraska made a run capitalized by a Tai Webster layup to give the home team a 54-51 advantage. But the Terps responded with back to back threes from Trimble, and strong play down the stretch from Layman and Stone gave the Terps a three point lead with under a minute left.

A rare missed free throw Stone with 33 seconds left gave Nebraska life. But smothering defense from Rasheed Sulaimon and a clutch rebound by Layman sealed the win on the road for the Terps.

Diamond Stone stuffed the score sheet with 16 points, 10 rebounds, and eight blocks, and Trimble put up 20 points on only seven field goal attempts. The key at the end was Maryland’s domination of the interior; they won the rebound and points in the paint battles, and dominated the blocks category 13 to 1.

The Terrapins return home for a battle against Purdue Saturday at 4 p.m.