With a mask and without backcourt mate Eric Ayala, Darryl Morsell willed the Maryland men’s basketball team to victory.
The senior shooting guard from Baltimore scored 16 of his team-high 19 points in the second half to fuel the Terps’ 66-63 upset of No. 12 Illinois on Sunday night at the State Farm Center in Champaign, Illinois.
Sophomore forward Donta Scott, who entered the game leading Maryland in rebounding (7.3) and ranking second in scoring (12.9), contributed 16 points and seven rebounds to help the program end a three-game losing skid and avoid its first four-game losing streak under coach Mark Turgeon and first since a four-game stretch against former Atlantic Coast Conference rivals Clemson, North Carolina, Virginia Tech and Clemson again in the 2004-05 season.
Morsell, a Mount St. Joseph graduate, had the hot hand to open the second half, scoring nine of the Terps’ first 14 points. That flourish was headlined an offense that converted six of its first seven shots from the floor.
Morsell, who wears No. 11, was matched by his jersey number counterpart, junior shooting guard Ayo Dosunmu, who scored 14 of his 21 points in the second half. At one point, Dosunmu scored nine straight points for the Fighting Illini.
Trailing 61-59 with less than 90 seconds remaining, sophomore shooting guard Hakim Hart drained his first three-pointer of the game from the right with 1:18 left to give Maryland the one-point lead. After Illinois missed a field-goal attempt, Turgeon called a timeout, and Morsell capped his performance with a driving layup from the right wing and over 7-foot sophomore center Kofi Cockburn with 33 seconds left.
Junior shooting guard Aaron Wiggins sank two free throws with 17 seconds remaining to pad the Terps’ cushion to 66-61, and after sophomore guard Ayo Dosunmu hit a layup with eight seconds left. Sophomore forward Donta Scott missed the front end of a one-and-one with seven seconds remaining, and Dosunmu’s three-point attempt with one second left was too strong, banging off the back rim.
The Terps missed junior point guard Eric Ayala, who was ruled out before the game due to a groin injury suffered in a 89-67 loss at No. 5 Iowa on Thursday night. The team countered with a three-guard set of Morsell, Wiggins and Hart, but none of the three is a true point guard.
