COLLEGE PARK — In a true prize fight-like contest and atmosphere against No. 15 Marquette, Maryland held its own behind 20-plus point performances from guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie and center Derik Queen. Kam Jones, however, proved worthy of his unanimous all-Big East first-team selection, scoring a game-high 28 points as the Golden Eagles pulled away in the final minutes of a thriller to win 78-74.
“I think this is why you play these early season tests. You got to see where you’re at,” Maryland coach Kevin Willard said. “That’s a good basketball team, extremely well coached. That’s why I wanted to test these guys early.”
Jones shot 10-of-18, while Stevie Mitchell added 18 for Marquette (4-0) in a game where the lead changed hands 13 times, with no team getting up by more than 8 points.
Gillespie and Queen each had a team-high 24 - Gillespie on 10-of-18 shooting, including four of Maryland’s seven threes, and Queen on 10-of-17 from the floor.
“I feel like we’re definitely getting better as a team, just learning how to play off each other, but we still have work to do,” Gillespie said.
“You’re going to have the ball in Kobi’s hands just because he’s your best playmaker and a guy that can make shots. But Derek in the high post against against them, he had the size advantage against [David] Joplin, and he had the speed advantage against [Ben] Gold,” Willard said. “So it was more or less putting those two guys in certain situations to kind of let them go.”
Though he had 10 rebounds, forward Julian Reese only had 2 points on three shots, an offensive piece the Terrapins missed.
“They did an unbelievable job with just being really physical with him early. And Ju got a little frustrated,” Willard said. “The game was a much more up and down game than I thought it was going to be … It’s the one thing with Derik and Ju that we’ve got to kind of figure out a little bit is just kind of getting them in better spots.”
Maryland (3-1) committed a season-high 13 turnovers and was 9-of-14 from the foul line, including two misses from DeShawn Harris-Smith with an opportunity to tie the game at 76 with 15 seconds left.
“I was really proud of these guys’ effort. Really loved the way they kept battling,” Willard said. “Just getting a new team to understand the value of every possession.”
The biggest, buzziest crowd of the season at Xfinity Center helped Gillespie get his night started early, as he scored 4 of Maryland’s first 6 points. Jones was there to answer, with 8 of Marquette’s first 10, as both teams broke out with a frenetic pace amid an early 10-6 Golden Eagles lead.
Marquette felt the force of Maryland’s top-10 scoring defense soon after, going cold with a 1-for-10 stretch mid-half, coinciding with Jones ending up on the bench with two fouls.
Maryland nudged things forward again with its backcourt. Harris-Smith scored back-to-back layups, including a coast-to-coast one on a fast break. Then Gillespie hit his and Maryland’s second three, followed by a baby jumper for a 29-25 Terrapins lead, part of a 7-0 run.
Joplin had been smothering Queen like a blanket for most of the first, with Maryland timid to throw the ball into the post and forward Julian Reese held without a shot in the first 20.
Queen, though, came on strong at the half’s close, scoring Maryland’s final 5 points for 11 in the frame and a 34-30 lead at the break. Uncharacteristically, Maryland turned it over nine times in the half, but it didn’t sting them as its defense held Marquette to 38% from the floor.
“We tried three full court length passes. We had six turnovers that were unforced,” Willard said. “So a little bit of getting used to playing in a [loud] building that they haven’t seen yet was a little bit, I think, new for them. As great as it helped us defensively in the first half, it kind of gave us a little bit of the jitters on the offensive end.”
Queen scored 6 of the first 10 after halftime, but Marquette came charging back immediately after. A 7-0 run on layups from Jones and Royce Parham, and a Chase Ross three prompted a Maryland time out. The 47-44 Golden Eagles lead was their first in 12 minutes of action.
Gillespie responded again, hitting another three and scoring 7 straight Terrapins points to close the Marquette lead to 56-54 halfway through the second half.
Marquette answered, with two threes and a layup from Jones nudging the Golden Eagles back in front 64-61. He’d score 11 straight points in all late in the game.
The Golden Eagles had built up a 9-point lead with less than 5 minutes remaining that Maryland whittled all the way down to two in the final minute, but Harris-Smith’s misses at the line to tie ended the Terrapins’ final chance.
“We had our opportunities,” Willard said. “We just, we’ll learn from it, and we’ll get better from it.”
• George Gerbo can be reached at ggerbo@washingtontimes.com.
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