Maryland dominates second half to snap Purdue win streak
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COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Purdue did everything it had to do Tuesday night to win at Maryland.
It started the game well. It didn’t turn the ball over, committing just four. It more than held its own on the glass against one of the Big Ten’s most formidable rebounding teams. It grabbed 17 offensive rebounds.
But the box the 12th-ranked Boilermakers couldn’t check, the thing they couldn’t do rendered all the rest of it irrelevant: Score.
Purdue couldn’t score, not in the second half at least.
"It just felt like a lid was on the rim," senior Ryan Cline said.
And because of it, the Boilermakers’ eight-game winning streak ended at the Xfinity Center, after No. 24 Maryland turned an 11-point first-half deficit into a 70-56 win.
The Terrapins outscored Purdue 40-18 in the second half, as the Boilermakers, one of the most potent, efficient offensive teams in college basketball thus far this season, were only 6-of-36 from the floor in the final 20 minutes.
Maryland seemed to up its pressure on Purdue’s guards in the second half, forcing difficult shots. Often, it would follow its misses, then miss, or have blocked, just-as-difficult follow-ups.
Its initial shots were often hurried or challenged, a deficit in the sort of poise and savvy offensively Purdue has shown often through its season-transforming January and early February.
"We just didn't do a good job when they got aggressive of just probing the defense and going to the next action, but that happens," Coach Matt Painter said. "That happens when teams D you up and the crowd gets into it."
Carsen Edwards scored 24 points for Purdue, but did so on 8-of-27 shooting, with two turnovers and no assists.
Ryan Cline was 3-of-12 from the floor.
Two of Purdue’s six second-half field goals came courtesy of Trevion Williams rebounding difficult jumpers that missed.
While Purdue cratered at one end of the floor, Maryland surged.
After shooting 40 percent in the first half, missing a good number of open threes playing off Purdue's double teams in the post, the Terrapins made 60 percent of their shots after halftime, including four dunks and three threes.
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The threes were game-changers, though.
With 12:40 left to play, Purdue led 48-42 after Edwards buried a three.
But at the other end, he fell guarding Eric Ayala up top, and Ayala passed off, then got it back and nailed a three of his own from right in front of the Maryland bench.
Next Maryland possession, Edwards tripped or slipped running through a screen on an in-bound and Ayala made a three from the opposite corner to tie the game.
"That was the game," Painter said. "We don't lose the game right there, but we're in position to push that lead out and we don't."
Not long thereafter, Maryland led for the first time.
Purdue was outscored 22-8 the rest of the way, capping a loss that belies its box score.
If its turnover total of four can be considered optimal for Purdue, then 17 offensive rebounds and an overall draw on the boards might be considered a dream come true.
"(Maryland) played a good defensive game but that's an abnormality for us," big man Matt Haarms said of the second half. "We had 17 offensive rebounds and turned the ball over four times and those are stats you look at and think you beat a team by 15.
"We just couldn't get the ball to go in. If you can't score, it's that easy. That's the game."
And now for the first time since Jan. 8 and only the second time in 2019, Purdue is rebounding from a loss.
It will hope this long-unfelt feeling now can yield some positive.
"There are times when you're on the highest highs when you're winning," Cline said, "and then there are times you get low and have to crank up the intensity a little bit."
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