The shots had been falling for Indiana point guard Yogi Ferrell all night — leaning shots, acrobatic shots, seemingly impossible shots. So as the ball left his hand with the Hoosiers down two and only a few seconds left on the clock Wednesday, Maryland didn’t feel good about its chances.
“I thought it was good,” point guard Melo Trimble said of the shot.
“It was probably the most open look he got,” coach Mark Turgeon said.
“It was probably the best shot I took all game,” Ferrell said, “that I felt like it was going in.”
Ferrell had carried Indiana for much of the previous 39 minutes, but his most important attempt of the game — that straightaway three — found only iron. His subsequent putback also missed its mark as the buzzer sounded, and the 19th-ranked Terrapins escaped with a 68-66 victory.
“I guess the basketball gods were on our side tonight,” Dez Wells said.
Wells and Trimble each finished with 18 points for Maryland, which stayed in second place in the Big Ten with an 8-4 mark and improved to 20-5 overall. The Hoosiers, meanwhile, slid from second place in the conference to seventh with the loss.
Junior Jake Layman added 14 points on 5-for-6 shooting for Maryland. It was an emphatic bounce-back performance after he had arguably his worst game of the season Sunday afternoon against Iowa. That same storyline, however, could be applied to several players and the team overall. It was a rebound in every way.
“I was saying a win like this can turn the season around,” Layman said. “We’re very confident right now. We’ve had a lot of good practices lately, and Coach is feeling good about the way this team is improving right now.”
After that 71-55 loss to the Hawkeyes, Maryland’s scheduled flight home experienced mechanical problems. Trimble said the team spent two additional hours in an Iowa airport before boarding the plane for a two-hour flight to Baltimore. The extra travel time allowed the disappointment of that afternoon’s defeat to simmer longer than usual.
“It hurt,” Trimble said.
When the team bus got back to campus at around 1 a.m. on Monday, Turgeon asked his players one question before they disembarked: What are you going to do to make your teammates better?
Then, in a team meeting later in the week, Turgeon tried to instill a sense of urgency in his players.
“There’s a lot of guys in that room that are seniors. You’ve got seven regular season games left,” Turgeon recalled after Wednesday’s game. “Are we just trying to be mediocre, or are we trying to have a great year? What are we trying to do?”
On Wednesday night, anyways, Maryland’s answer to that question was clear.
The first meeting between Maryland and Indiana was the Yogi Ferrell show, with the junior point guard shooting 7-for-8 from beyond the arc and finishing with 24 points. It was more of the same in the first half Wednesday, but this time, Maryland had a way of retaliating.
Trimble started the game with a more aggressive mindset than he’s had in recent weeks, possibly the result of improved health in his sore back. He dished and drove his way to 11 first-half points.
“Last game, up there, the guy (Ferrell) got the best of him,” Turgeon said. “So I think he was pretty fired up to come out and compete.”
Wells was equally effective early, scoring nine points in the first half, and sophomore center Damonte Dodd provided a stout defensive presence under the basket. He recorded three blocks in the opening minutes before being relegated to the bench because of foul trouble.
Maryland carried a slim 35-34 lead into halftime, and neither team could find much separation thereafter. The Terrapins went up by six points with 5:21 remaining, but Robert Johnson hit a 3-pointer and Ferrell banked in one of his own to quickly tie the game. All told, there were 18 lead changes and seven ties in the game.
“What a great game. Are you kidding me?” Turgeon said, gesturing to reporters. “You guys get paid to sit there and write about this? Wow.”
Layman made the last definitive jump shot with 1:01 left in the game, then hit two free throws to help seal it. Trimble also hit both of his shots from the charity stripe in the final minute, setting up the exciting finish for Ferrell.
The diminutive guard finished with a game-high 23 points and made 6 of his 9 shots from 3-point range, but the last miss will stick with him.
“That shot’s going to be in the back of my mind for a while now,” he said. “It felt good, looked good. It just didn’t go in.”
• Tom Schad can be reached at tschad@washingtontimes.com.
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