UNC 77, Maryland 62
On the back of a great performance by Reyshawn Terry and David Noel, UNC was able to turn a 2 point deficit at halftime into a 15 point win on the road at Maryland. Maryland had won 14 straight games at home and were ranked 23rd in the nation coming into the game. They didn't look that good to me. Especially with one of their stars, Chris McCray, out due to academic ineligibility, I predict Maryland will head south in the ACC standings over the next few weeks.
The game was really the tale of two halves. In the first half, we played sloppy ball and didn't shoot that well. In the second half, we protected the ball better, played better defense, and shot at a decent clip. In the first 11 minutes of the game, we averaged a turnover every minute. Noel made a couple of bad passes as he's been prone to do and of course Terry received his obligatory offensive foul/charge call. Fortunately, Noel offset the turnovers with aggressiveness on the offensive side I haven't seen in several games. It looks like he actually wanted to score again. He had 15 of his 19 points in the first half.
The game went back and forth. Maryland and UNC both had opportunities to establish a lead, but couldn't do it. At one point, Wes Miller nailed 2 three pointers in a row for us, but we could only manage a 2 point lead with 5 minutes to go. Maryland came on strong in the final minutes and Nic Caner-Medley (who I dislike with a passion), nailed a 3 pointer to go up 38-40 at the half.
Nic is probably Maryland's best player and is very versatile with his size and ability to shoot the 3. Reyshawn got the defensive assignment against Nic and did an excellent job all night. He hurried and tipped several of Nic's shots and Nic look frustrated most of the night, but still finished with 15 points.
In the second half, we came out firing. It was much more physical and refs weren't calling anything. It was amazing how much they let go. The calls were pretty even on both sides, but Hansbrough had a tough night partly because of all the rough play. He didn't go to the free line nearly as much even though he got hacked numerous times without getting the call. Hansbrough had a fairly quite night, but still managed 15 point.
The story of the second half was Reyshawn Terry. He played solid D as I mentioned before but he was all over the court and scored a game-high 20 points on 7-14 shooting. This was his best game of the year.
We slowly built a lead and were up by 10 with 5 minutes to go. Bobby Frasor had an off night shooting (1-5 from behind the 3 point line), but he hit a critical 3 in the final minutes to maintain our 10 point lead after Maryland went on a run.
Other key stats:
- Turnovers: 24 (UNC), 12 (Maryland)
+ Rebounds: 52 (UNC), 34 (Maryland)
+ David Noel double-double: 19 points, 12 rebounds
+ UNC blocks: 7
- Tyler Hansbrough turnovers: 8
