Maryland Pushes Past Duke on Senior Night

Terrapins’ win marks first against Blue Devils since 2007

By: Megan Hovey

COLLEGE PARK, Md.- One could argue that Maryland men’s basketball head coach Gary Williams received a pretty nice early birthday present on Wednesday.

The No. 23 Terrapins (22-7) overcame No. 4 Duke (25-5) 79-72 in front of a sold-out Comcast Center crowd. The win held off the Blue Devils’ hopes of winning their 12th ACC regular season title. The teams are currently tied for first place in the conference with one game remaining in the regular season.

Wednesday was also senior night for Maryland, with the team celebrating Landon Milbourne, Eric Hayes and ACC Player of the Year candidate Greivis Vasquez.

Many thought that this game would be simply be a matchup between Vasquez and Duke’s Jon Scheyer.

But it didn’t exactly pan out that way.

Vasquez was certainly a key player for the Terrapins, turning in 20 points for the night. His biggest highlight came with 37 seconds remaining in the game, putting up an off-balance, acrobatic 2-pointer which gave Maryland a 73-69 lead and the cushion it needed to win.

Vasquez says he knew all eyes were on him going into that moment.

“I work on those shots,” he said. “I’m going to be honest, it went in and I thank God for that. I was going to take the shot and the credit if I made it, and the hit if I missed it.”

His night wasn’t all a dream, though. Vasquez was benched for a portion of the second half and caused five turnovers.

The dark horse of the game was Maryland’s Adrian Bowie, who was a perfect 4-for-4 in the field and 1-for-1 from the line.

Williams is thankful for Bowie’s performance.

“I thought Adrian Bowie tonight in the second half was a great player, he might have been the difference for us,” he said. “He got us through.”

Duke’s dark horse came in the form of Nolan Smith, who posted 20 points. Scheyer followed close behind at 19 (he was only 7-for-21 in the field). Brian Zoubek also posted a game-high 13 rebounds.

The beginning of the first half had many thinking that the game was Maryland’s to lose. The Terrapins started off hot with an easy 7-0 run with 17:39 remaining in the half.

Play went back-and-forth, but 3-pointers made by Duke’s Kyle Singler, Smith and Scheyer within the final three minutes of the half gave Maryland only a 40-38 lead heading into the locker room.

Scheyer took command right away in the second half with a 3-pointer in the first 10 seconds, giving the Blue Devils their first lead of the night with a score of 41-40.

A 7-0 scoring run by Maryland with 12:05 left in the game helped the Terrapins regain their lead. Duke was right on their coattails, keeping up with them the entire rest of the game.

Ultimately, Vasquez’s 2-pointer clinched the win for Maryland.

Williams knew that Duke wasn't going down without a fight.

“Defensively, we won the game,” he said. “No one scores a lot of points against Duke, but what we did early, we were really hot and made some great plays. At halftime, we had to come out and fight, and for the first eight minutes (of the second half), no one was scoring and it was two really good teams fighting each other.”

Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski has mixed feelings about the Blue Devils’ performance.

“There was a lot of emotion in this building and they fed off of it early on and almost knocked us out of the building,” he said. “Our kids responded really well. With six minutes to go in the half I thought we controlled the game. We started out the second half the same way and we did not put the ball in the basket.”

Both teams have one more game in the regular season on March 6, with the Terrapins traveling to Virginia and the Blue Devils facing North Carolina at home.