No. 9 Maryland has huge opportunity in pivotal Friday night road battle against Illinois
Photo Courtesy of Maryland Athletics.
Maryland Men's Basketball (18-iv, 8-3 B1G) has an opportunity to claim sole possession of first identify in the conference with a win over No. 20 Illinois (16-6, eight-3 B1G) Friday at the State Farm Center in Champaign.
Concluding fourth dimension both teams faced off at the Xfinity Center on Dec. seven, Maryland pulled out a gutsy 59-58 comeback win, leading for only 27 seconds. Senior Anthony Cowan Jr. led the Terps in that contest with 20 points and a clutch game-tying three with less than 30 seconds remaining. Cowan's late-game heroics saved Maryland after the Terps struggled mightily in the opening 20 minutes, and trailed past 14 at halftime.
All the same, this fourth dimension around, both teams are much improved and playing some of their best basketball of the season. The Terps are currently on a five-game winning streak, fueled by first-class defense and better ball motility offensively. Over that stretch, standout center Jalen Smith has been phenomenal, averaging 20.8 points, 12.two rebounds and 3.vi blocks per game. "Stix" is coming off a career-high six-block performance confronting Rutgers on Tuesday, quickly emerging as one of the premier shot blocks in the country.
"My confidence is at an all-fourth dimension high," Jalen Smith said. "Coach has been helping me with that and only making sure I continue the right mind going into every game."
Facing off confronting the Fighting Illini, he has some other tough challenge lying ahead, facing off confronting the imposing duo of Kofi Cockburn and Giorgi Bezhanishvili. In the first game, "Stix" had 3 blocks, consistently fronting the postal service and altering shots.
"Jalen has always been a really expert shot blocker, it's discipline," head coach Mark Turgeon said. "He'due south staying down on shot fakes and that's hard to do, specially when the guy is a pes from the basket."
While it possesses not bad talent downward low, Illinois besides has great guard talent. The backcourt duo of Trent Frazier and Ayo Dosunmu is one of the best in the briefing and as well one of the quickest. Frazier is one of the all-time perimeter defenders in the conference, while Dosunmu has been splendid recently, averaging xvi.viii ppg and iv.eight apg in his concluding five games. In the showtime meeting, Maryland'south defence performed well against Dosunmu, limiting him to just 9 points on 33 percent shooting.
The biggest key for Maryland on Friday night volition exist playing a consistent 40 minutes in a hostile atmosphere. Playing on the route, the Terps can't beget to turn the brawl over or beginning slowly, allowing the Fighting Illini faithful to become energized early on.
"Transition defense is huge, ball screen defence is huge," Turgeon said. "You can't have live ball turnovers; you accept to exist really good with the ball."
After the last coming together, several Terps credited the home crowd for providing them heightened energy to comeback. Friday night, the Terps won't take the same luxury and an early arrears could potentially be catastrophic. In guild to avoid a deadening start, Maryland needs to get its all-time players going early, notably Cowan and Jalen Smith.
With Illinois caput coach Brad Underwood expected to plan for both players, other Terps will need to step upwards including Darryl Morsell, and the guard tandem of Aaron Wiggins and Eric Ayala. Ayala is coming off his first scoreless game of this season but continued to put in extra work coming out onto the court after Tuesday'southward win to put up more shots.
From the opening whistle Friday dark'southward battle for commencement identify volition be a dogfight, showcasing some of the best talent the Big X Conference has to offer. The game is scheduled to tip-off at eight p.m. and will air on FS1.
"Information technology's actually heady, we knew what we were capable of," Wiggins said. "We always knew that we had the talent and we had the pieces to be a really good team."
Source: http://wmucsports.net/no-9-maryland-has-huge-opportunity-in-pivotal-friday-night-road-battle-against-illinois/
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