LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. _ The team Maryland men's basketball coach Mark Turgeon talked about throughout the preseason _ one that shot well from 3, shared the ball and defended with a toughness rarely seen from most of its recent predecessors _ finally showed up for the 2019-20 season Sunday in the championship game of the Orlando Invitational.
Playing against Marquette and senior guard Markus Howard, the nation's leading scorer coming off a 51-point performance against Southern California at the HP Field House, the No. 5 Terps played up to their ranking in an impressive 84-63 victory that was virtually over late in the first half.
With Howard bottled up by junior guard Darryl Morsell and a relentless switching defense, junior guard Anthony Cowan Jr. scored a team-high 22 points, along with six rebounds and four assists, to win the tournament's Most Valuable Player award.
Howard, who had scored 50 points in the semifinals against USC after going for 40 against Davidson, scored just six. With Howard hitting just one of 12 shots, including 0-for-6 on 3-pointers, sophomore forward Brendan Bailey led Marquette (5-2) with 27 points.
The victory gave Maryland (8-0) its first in-season championship since winning the Barclays Center Classic in Brooklyn, when the Terps began the season with 20-2 record, the best start in school history. It marks the first 8-0 start for Maryland since 2006-07.
Aside from his unbelievable defense on Howard, who was averaged close to 30 points coming in, Morsell added 17 points, one shy of his career-high, and 10 rebounds. Sophomore wing Aaron Wiggins tied his career high with 15 points.
After coming out sluggish and sloppy in its first two games, a pair of seven-point wins over Temple and Harvard, Maryland came out fast and focused Sunday, going from an 11-11 tie to a 33-17 lead. The Terps led at half, 42-21, as Cowan hit a 25-foot 3-pointer with three seconds left.
Starting where it left off in the first half, Maryland quickly built its lead to as many as 25 early in the second half, and watched the Golden Eagles trim their deficit by more than half even without Howard able to get off shots.
With its lead chopped to 12 with a little over four minutes left, the Terps finally figured out Marquette's zone. Wiggins hit a corner 3, and after a pair of free throws by Howard, Morsell scored off his own miss and fed former Mount Saint Joseph teammate Jalen Smith (eight points, six rebounds, three blocks) for a dunk to quiet the Golden Eagles and their fans.
