Maryland men’s basketball defeated Illinois, 91-70, on Jan. 23.
Maryland (15-5 overall, 5-4 Big Ten) bagged its first road win of the season behind senior big man Julian Reese’s career-high 27 points.
However, Maryland still owns a 1-4 mark in true road games. The Terps travel to Indiana for a matchup against the Hoosiers on Jan. 26 at noon, but first, here are three takeaways from their first road victory:
Maryland’s bigs provided a huge lift.
Neither freshman Derik Queen nor Reese scored in double figures in the Terps’ 69-66 win against Nebraska on Jan. 19.
However, Queen finished with 25 points and six rebounds at Illinois, while Reese grabbed 17 rebounds en route to his seventh double-double of the season. Reese and Queen combined to shoot 61.1 percent from the floor.
“I feel like on games like that, when me and him got double-doubles and double figures, it’s hard for us to lose,” Reese said. “Especially when we’re attacking the boards like we did today against another good rebounding team in Illinois.”
The Baltimore natives also helped Maryland dominate the paint with Illinois starting center Tomislav Ivisic out due to illness. The Terps finished with 62 points in the paint.
This is the first time both Reese and Queen have scored in double digits since a Dec. 28 victory against Maryland Eastern Shore.
“We knew they were down the big kid,” Maryland head coach Kevin Willard said. “And it was like, ‘All right, they’re going to put a freshman out there. Don’t even think about shooting threes. Just throw it in, throw it in, throw it in. Don’t shoot threes.'”
The Terps took advantage of Illinois’ turnovers.
Maryland’s defense forced 16 turnovers and took advantage of the Illini’s mistakes, scoring 27 points off turnovers. The Terps also finished with 16 fast-break points.
On the other hand, Maryland also protected the ball (seven turnovers) and allowed just three fast-break points and four points off turnovers.
In all, the Terps’ defense was stifling. Illinois shot 37.7 percent from the floor (23 of 61) and only held the lead once, with 12 minutes remaining in the first half.
“I thought defensively in the second half to make the stops, we made a couple of adjustments on the pick-and-roll defense and really defended the 3-point line,” Willard said.
Maryland ended a troubling trend.
In each of the Terps’ road losses, the start of the second half led to an eventual collapse. Maryland made sure that didn’t happen again after going into the break ahead, 38-35.
The Terps went on an 8-0 run to begin the second half to build their largest lead of the game at the time (52-41), but a quick timeout by the Illini seemed to give the home team the momentum.
Illinois went on an 8-0 of their own out of the timeout to cut the deficit to three (52-49), but a 3-pointer by junior Ja’Kobi Gillespie (15 points) halted any momentum the Illini had.
The Terps kept Illinois at bay for the rest of the night, gradually increasing their lead to 75-61 with less than six minutes to play. Maryland controlled the rest of the game as Illinois students, friends and family headed for the exits early.
“We kind of used that as motivation at halftime, just looking back and not getting complacent, just standing on this lead and keep building on it,” Reese said. “We’ve seen guys on the other team getting down on themselves. They looked kind of defeated. We tried to pounce on them and just tried to take advantage of that.”
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Maryland Athletics