BLOOMINGTON, Ind. _ For most of the first half Sunday at Assembly Hall, it looked like the Maryland men's basketball team was finally going to complete its Big Ten victory tour at road venues. The Terps had never won here since joining the league six years ago.
For much of the second half, it appeared as if the Terps were going to suffer another defeat to the Hoosiers on their venerable homecourt. But No. 17 Maryland scored the last seven points, the final two on a lay-up by sophomore forward Jalen Smith with 14 seconds left, to beat Indiana, 77-76.
Smith, who finished with a career-high 29 points and 11 rebounds, also altered the last shot by freshman forward Trayce Jackson-Davis in the waning seconds, then batted the rebound to the corner as the clock expired.
The Terps raced on the court to mob Smith, but the celebration lasted a little long and got ugly when the normally sedate Baltimorean started taunting the crowd after the postgame interview on the court. Maryland coach Mark Turgeon angrily pulled Smith off the court to the locker room.
The victory was the third straight for Maryland (16-4, 6-3 Big Ten) and second straight road win after losing its first four this season away from College Park. It followed an 11-point win at Northwestern on Tuesday, when the Terps erased a 14-point halftime deficit.
Senior guard Anthony Cowan Jr. finished with 18 points and junior guard Darryl Morsell added 10 points and six rebounds. Senior guard Devonte Green led Indiana (15-5, 5-4) with 16 points and helped give the Hoosiers, coming off a win over No. 11 Michigan State on Thursday, as much as an eight-point lead.
Maryland led by as many as 14 points in the first half, 38-24, on a 3-pointer by Morsell and by nine at halftime, 45-36. It represented the most points the Terps had scored in the first half since putting up 51 in the season opener against Holy Cross. With its comeback at Northwestern, Maryland has outscored the opposition 96-62 in its past two second halves.
But just as the Terps had trouble sustaining their offensive production against Purdue in their last home game _ putting up 1.5 points per possession against the Hoosiers _ Maryland's first-half shooting numbers of 17-for-31 overall and 9-for-17 from 3-point range didn't last either. But the biggest issue was its defense, as the Hoosiers scored on their first 12 possessions of the second half.
A critical possession came after Smith scored to cut Indiana's lead to 64-58. Indiana had three shots at the basket, corralling offensive rebounds on two misses before Green buried a 3-pointer from the wing for a 67-59 lead right before the under eight-minute timeout. Cowan hit a pair of free throws to cut the lead back to six.
Trailing 71-64 after a dunk by Jackson-Davis, Morsell pulled the Terps within five on a tough shot in traffic underneath with 3:39 left and was fouled. After the under-four timeout, Morsell's free throw pulled Maryland within four. At one point, the Terps had taken 15 free throws in the half, but had missed six, while the Hoosiers had just one attempt.
