SEATTLE — Myriad distractions confronted the fourth-seeded Maryland men’s basketball team entering Friday’s NCAA tournament game against No. 13 seed Grand Canyon. The Terrapins tuned them all out.
Instead, they simply clamped down defensively and controlled the interior offensively, leading to an 81-49 dismissal of the Antelopes at Climate Pledge Arena.
Five Maryland players scored in double figures, led by senior forward Julian Reese’s 18 points and nine rebounds, to propel the Terps (26-8) to their largest margin of victory in an NCAA tournament game in program history. They advanced to the round of 32 and will face No. 12 seed Colorado State on Sunday for a spot in the Sweet 16 in the West Region in San Francisco.
“Staying together as a family,” Reese said about playing through the saga of departing athletic director Damon Evans as well as Coach Kevin Willard’s comments Thursday regarding the state of the program and his contract situation. “It’s not like this is the first time that somebody has been talking bad about us or negatively, and it’s been distracting such as things like that off the court, so I feel like we’re kind of used to stuff like that, and we just stand as a family, and we know what’s up with us, so we just keep doing that. We’re good.”
Reese and frontcourt running mate Derik Queen were the centerpieces in Maryland owning a 44-16 buffer in points in the paint. The Terps also held a 22-3 advantage in points off turnovers, forcing 13 and committing eight — their third straight game in single digits.
Defensively, the Terrapins limited the Antelopes (26-8) to 28.6 percent shooting, including 5 for 23 (21.7 percent) on three-pointers and 0 for 7 in the second half. Maryland had six steals and six blocks, with Reese collecting two of each. Queen had a pair of blocks as well and finished with 12 points and 15 rebounds, the Big Ten freshman of the year’s 15th double-double, five behind the program record for a freshman established by Joe Smith in 1993-94.
DeShawn Harris-Smith (Paul VI) came off the bench to score a season-high 11 points, making all five of his field goal attempts. The sophomore, a starter for much of last season, had gone scoreless in the nine previous games entering the tournament but provided valuable minutes with starting guard-forward Selton Miguel in foul trouble.
Guard Tyon Grant-Foster scored a game-high 23 points for Grand Canyon. The 2024 WAC player of the year went 10 for 14 at the free throw line but 5 for 13 from the field and committed a team-high four turnovers. No other Lopes player scored more than six points.
“We just stayed together as a team and just kept punching and kept punching, and we defended and just — like we did everything well that we usually do as a team,” Queen said. “We just went out there and just played hard.”
A 14-4 uprising during the second half provided Maryland the separation necessary to remove any doubt. Five Terps scored in that stretch, with Reese’s short jumper expanding the advantage to 61-38 with 10:17 to go.
The first half ended with Maryland leading 42-28, after the Lopes got five consecutive points from Grant-Foster, including a buzzer-beating three-pointer, in the final minute. The Terps led by as many as 20 points in the first half.
The first NCAA tournament game for the Terps in more than two years took place some 24 hours after Willard spoke candidly about having not signed a reworked contract amid uncertainty surrounding the status of Evans, who stepped down to take the same position at Southern Methodist.
Willard indicated Evans had presented him and his agent with updated terms before the NCAA tournament field was announced on Sunday. A new deal to keep Willard in College Park, the third-year coach said, remains in limbo until there is clarity about the leadership of the athletic department.
“I talked to these guys,” Willard said about addressing the activity swirling around the program. “These guys know exactly what’s going on. I’ve been open with them. I’ve been honest with them. They know exactly what’s going on.”
Coming off a five-day break in their schedule, the Terps began with sloppy ball security and wayward shooting. They committed turnovers on three consecutive possessions in the opening minutes and went just 2 for 11 from the field in falling behind the WAC tournament champions.
The Terps then turned up their defensive intensity and found the range on offense, powering a 24-5 run. Reese got it started with an offensive rebound and putback, and Harris-Smith capped it with back-to-back layups for a 26-12 margin with 7:12 to play.
“I was disappointed that [Reese] a) wasn’t on one of the first three teams [for all-Big Ten] and b) wasn’t on the all-defensive team,” Willard said. “So I challenged Ju this week to kind of just show everybody the type of player he is. … I know the big fella’s going to show up, and he showed up for four years.”
