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Maryland men’s basketball opened its Big Ten slate in catastrophic fashion. It lost 83-64 to Iowa and hit just 17 field goals all game. It needed a rebound, and it got one Saturday.
Despite the Terps losing 101-83, they gave the Maryland faithful a reason to return to Xfinity Center in droves with how they fought. Maryland didn’t cower whatsoever to a No. 2 Michigan team that had been defeating its opponents by an average of 28 points.
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“[Michigan’s] the best team. And I thought we executed the plan at a very, very high level,” head coach Buzz Williams said.
Here are three takeaways from Saturday’s contest.
Pharrel Payne was injured again
Just weeks after suffering an injury and being stretchered off against Marquette, Pharrel Payne limped off the court after being rolled up on with under five minutes to play in the first half. He did not return to the game but was spotted sitting on the bench with his uniform on in the second half.
Without Payne, George Turkson Jr. and Elijah Saunders manned the paint for most of the game. But the duo are just 6-foot-7 and 6-foot-8, respectively, a far cry from some of Michigan’s towering bigs — Turkson was guarded by the 7-foot-3 Aday Mara. This led to the Terps being unable to grab a single rebound for the first 3:43 of the second frame.
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Solomon Washington’s second technical foul — a delay-of-game infraction after a made Maryland basket — and subsequent ejection didn’t help things. Instead of the Terps having a versatile, aggressive defender at their disposal, Williams was forced to allocate big-moment minutes to Collin Metcalf and Aleks Alston — two players who haven’t seen the court much at all.
“Losing [Payne] changes our offense, losing [Washington] on the glass changes our offense,” Williams said. “But we played with a really turned low turnover rate. We had our highest offensive rebound percentage.”
Though Maryland outrebounded the Wolverines 20-14 in the first half, it was a…
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Publish date : 2025-12-14 11:30:00
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