COLLEGE PARK, Md. — If Tuesday night’s season opener against Quinnipiac was a breeze for the Maryland men’s basketball team, Thursday night’s game against George Washington was much more turbulent.
Struggling to find their shooting touch for much of the evening, the No. 21 Terps overcame a sluggish first half and rallied in the second half for a 71-64 win over the visiting Colonials at the Xfinity Center that seemed much closer than the final score indicated.
In fact, Maryland couldn’t feel entirely comfortable until graduate student point guard Fatts Russell hit a 3-pointer with 44 seconds left in regulation that gave the team a 70-64 lead. George Washington graduate student guard Brendan Adams missed the front end of a one-and-one, and time ran out on a potential upset.
Junior forward Qudus Wahab, a Georgetown transfer, led the Terps with 18 points and 15 rebounds. Russell, a Rhode Island transfer, added 15 points and six rebounds, while senior shooting guard Eric Ayala compiled 11 points, three rebounds and two assists for Maryland, which shot 37.5% from the field and just 15% from 3-point range.
Unlike Tuesday’s game against Quinnipiac, when Maryland led by as much as 25 points late in the second half, the Terps (2-0) did not get much breathing room until midway through the final 20 minutes against George Washington (1-1).
Even after Maryland opened the second half with eight unanswered points to take a 37-30 lead, the Colonials battled back with six consecutive points of their own to draw within one. Junior forward Donta Scott’s 3-pointer with 15:25 left not only restored a little cushion for the Terps, but marked their first successful attempt from long range in 13 tries.
The two sides traded baskets until Maryland embarked on an 11-5 run to enjoy a 55-46 advantage. At one point, the Terps’ 12-point lead at 65-53 with 5:39 remaining was trimmed to two with 2:18 left, but George Washington went cold, and Maryland scored five points to seal the victory.
Sophomore shooting guard Joe Bamisile (20 points), Adams (14), senior forward Ricky Lindo Jr. (13) and junior point guard James Bishop (13) combined to score 60 of the Colonials’ 64 points.
Maryland played without freshman forward James Graham III, who was benched for violating an unspecified team rule, according to a school spokesman. His status for Saturday’s game against Vermont is unclear.
Unlike Tuesday night’s first half when they shot 51.5% from the field (17 for 33) en route to 41 points, the Terps struggled mightily in the opening 20 minutes Thursday night. They converted just 37.5% of their shots (12 for 32) and missed all nine of their attempts from behind the 3-point line.
Maryland endured scoring droughts of 3:58 and 3:13 in the first half and were fortunate that the Colonials were not much better, shooting 38.9% (14 of 36) overall and 25% from long range. But they had the first half’s only 3-pointers (both by former Maryland forward Lindo) and got a game-high 16 points and four rebounds from Bamisile.
Wahab paced Maryland with 10 points and nine rebounds in the first period, and Ayala added eight points. But one sequence late in the first half demonstrated the team’s inefficiency.
Ayala missed a pair of free throws, but George Washington sophomore forward Noel Brown traveled, turning the ball over back to the Terps. Then Russell lobbed a pass that was too far ahead for freshman forward Julian Reese, and the Colonials took advantage with a 3-pointer from Lindo that gave them their largest lead at 26-21 with 2:03 remaining.
Maryland responded with an 8-4 spurt capped by a thunderous dunk from Wahab with one second left that narrowed the deficit to 30-29 at halftime.
