|
|
| Terps Tame
Hawks |
| |
| By: Chad Capellman |
| Date: December 12, 2001 |
You can't blame Monmouth for modeling its game plan
against Maryland after a team that actually lost to the Terps
earlier this year. Princeton frustrated Maryland with its
spread offense and back-door cuts before being out-manned by
the favored Terps with a deeper bench.
And for a half
at Cole Field House, Monmouth provided similar headaches for
Maryland. But in their last game before exams, the Terps
appeared to have taken the lessons learned from the Princeton
ordeal to heart. Maryland's defense stifled the Hawks in the
second half and the No. 3 Terps rolled to a 91-55 victory for
their eighth straight and head coach Gary Williams' 250th
career victory at his alma mater.
"It helped playing
Princeton before we played these guys, it really did,"
Williams said. "Because they do a lot of the same things with
the matchup and drop back, so we'd seen it before. The problem
with playing Princeton is that's the first time you've seen
that usually. Well, tonight was the second time so we probably
played better offense as the game went on against their
defense.
"In the second half we did play better. This
is a good win to have going into exams."
Juan Dixon
scored a game-high 18 points for the Terps, who had five
players score in double figures during their highest-scoring
output of the season. The win extends the nation's longest
non-conference home winning streak to 82 games and gives
Williams his fourth-longest winning streak in his tenure at
Maryland.
Lonny Baxter was the focus of Monmouth's
defensive attention, and was held without a field goal for the
entire first half. He finished with 10 points and nine
rebounds, making just 2-of-6 field goal attempts, but
converting on 6-of-8 free throw attempts.
Steve Blake,
who went scoreless in Maryland's 79-54 victory over Detroit,
scored his first points of the game when he made a
three-pointer with 5:46 remaining in the first half and
finished with seven points, seven assists and just one
turnover. Coming into the game, Blake had eight or more
assists in four straight games.
"Seven assists to one
turnover, that's a good ratio. We'll take that all year,"
Williams said. "I thought Steve Blake played very well against
(Krayl) Johnson and made him work for everything he got in the
first half, but we didn't do a good job of recovering."
The Terps raced out to a 13-0 run to start the second
half, sparked by a three-pointer by Byron Mouton, who finished
with a season-high 17 points on 7-of-10 shooting. After a fast
break layup by Chris Wilcox (10 points, 13 rebounds) gave the
Terps a 71-41 lead with 12:39 remaining in the game, the Terps
never led by less than 30 the rest of the way.
It was
just what Williams needed after Monmouth's Russ Anderson (12
points) pulled the Hawks to 46-37 with a three-pointer as the
first half ended. It was a frustrating half in many respects
for the Terps, including Wilcox, who twice cocked the ball
back behind his head for would-be crowd- erupting dunks, only
to have the ball explode off the back iron and near mid-court.
"I was very worried at halftime because, especially
Johnson, because of the way he can turn it on. If he came out
and hit two threes, all of a sudden it's a three point game. I
was concerned going into the second half."
Monmouth
made nearly half their shots in the first half, but Maryland's
depth wore down the Hawks. In the second half, Monmouth made
just 6 of 26 field goal attempts.
"That's part of the
way we try to play. We hope we have a deep enough bench that
we can go play eight or nine in the first half. You have to go
with what you have to your advantage. And I thought our
advantage was our bench cause Monmouth had a couple guys
nicked up. We used our bench in the first half and it probably
paid off in the second half."
While none of the Terps
would have enjoyed a loss, the win over Monmouth was
especially gratifying for junior forward Tahj Holden, who
hails from Red Bank, N.J.
"This is one of the better
turn-arounds for me, because Monmouth is so close to me," said
Holden, who scored 11 points for his third straight game
scoring in double digits. "I wanted to beat them so bad. ...
We've played against each other most of our lives, so we know
each other pretty well."
Click
here for all the details!
| | |
