Men’s hoops drops two home games

The Jackets (9-8, 2-4 ACC) came into this game looking to rebound from a tough loss against Clemson, and pick up that ever-elusive 500th victory at Alexander Memorial Coliseum. They were not able to do that, however, as the Terps were victorious by the final score of 86-74.

With Wednesday’s loss, the Jackets are now on a four-game skid going into a critical series on the road starting with Boston College on Sunday, followed by Virginia Tech on Tuesday night.

“We try to not let [the losing streak] affect us too much. We think about it, but what is in the past is in the past. We can’t do anything about it, so we have to move on. We lost a game, and we can’t continue to be down about it. We played hard today, but it just wasn’t meant to be,” sophomore center Ra’Sean Dickey said.

“They established their physical presence early. They had 12 offensive rebounds. They took the ball inside strong and established themselves early on in the game. I thought that we had pretty good energy in the second half. We battled back but were unable to get anything to fall. We could not make any shots, some of them just rolled off,” Head Coach Paul Hewitt said.

The game started out with Tech and Maryland trading baskets. Neither team particularly dominated the game to start out. The tempo of the game was somewhat slow as both teams seemed content to get into the half court game.

However, one thing was made clear. The game was going to be called tightly on both sides with regards to fouls. Jeremis Smith picked up two quick fouls to get him into some early foul trouble. At around the 12:57 mark, the Terps forced a key turnover using the full court press that broke the game out to 17-10. They continued to use the press throughout the first half.

When Tech was able to beat the full-court press, they made the score 24-23 after Lewis Clinch hit a three-pointer at the 8:20 mark. Then with 7:12 left in the half, Maryland started to pull away again after a key three-pointer by McCray’s replacement in the starting lineup, Mike Jones, pushed the game out to 31-24.

The game continued to be streaky in this way. The Terrapins would get out to a large lead, and then the Jackets would fight back to make the game closer but were just not able to break ahead of Maryland.

The Jackets went into the locker room down 43-35. The Terps were able to get inside and create points by getting to the free-throw line. Maryland shot 18-19 from the charity stripe. Senior small forward Nik Caner-Medley led the way for the Terps at the half with 11 points, and nearly half of them came at the free throw line. The Jackets managed to keep the game close by limiting the Terps to 35 percent shooting from the field. Dickey led the Jackets in points with 10 at the half.

The Jackets were unable to knock down many field goals in the second half as the Terps continued to play high-pressure defense. Meanwhile, the Terps continued to hit nearly all of their free throws. Maryland shot 91 percent from the free throw line for the game. Caner-Medley finished the game with a career-high 33 points and shot 15-16 from the free-throw line.

For the Jackets, Dickey had an impressive performance by earning the double-double with 18 points and 11 rebounds.

“We felt like we played hard. We stuck to the game plan and played hard. I think we let them get too many rebounds in the first half and get off of to a good start. We should have been boxing out more. In the second half, we let them score too often. We let our offense determine our defense. We didn’t play as tough a defense as we should have played,” sophomore guard Anthony Morrow said.

Last Saturday, the Clemson Tigers came to town to face the Jackets. In an underwhelming performance, Tech turned the ball over a season-high 27 times and finished off the last nine minutes of the game by hitting only two shots from the field, as Clemson went on a 13-4 run to finish the Jackets off. Clemson capitalized on Tech’s many mistakes by scoring 31 points off of turnovers. Tech only made 9-28 in the second half. Tech’s woes at the charity stripe also continued as they made 8-13 from the free-throw line.

“The basket must have been getting a lot smaller for Tech versus the zone, and we weren’t giving up a lot of second and third looks against the zone. That was big for us and pretty much tells the story,” Clemson Head Coach Oliver Purnell said.

“Twenty-seven turnovers can really hurt you. It can hurt the best efforts, and we did a great job on the boards. I thought we could have done better defending the three-point line, especially in the first half, but the turnovers were the story of the game,” Hewitt said.

Clemson came into the game as a solid rebounding team, and one high point for Tech was winning the boards game 49-29. Dickey led the Jackets with 13 rebounds, while Smith had 12.

West also came back into the lineup for the Jackets after injuring his toe against Air Force back in December.

He received a standing ovation from the crowd as he came in off the bench in the first half. Upon entering the game, West forced a Clemson turnover on an inbounds pass on his first play.

The Jackets had a slight lead through the first half. Clemson did take the lead from Tech at the 3:11 mark in the first half, but a string of three consecutive three pointers from Morrow helped lead Tech back to the lead, and the Jackets were on top 43-38 at halftime.

The Jackets shot 16-31 from the field, while Clemson made 13-31. From behind the three-point line, Tech shot 3-7. Tech turned the ball over 13 times to Clemson’s eight. This led to 15 Clemson points off of those Tech turnovers.

“At some point in time, we broke down on defense. On the offense, we did not get in the right zone or whatever. So we had our breakdowns in situations where they took advantage of that,” Tarver said.

Starting the second half, Tech and Clemson traded buckets for the first few minutes. Then at the 17:23 mark, the Jackets appeared to breaking the game open moving the game out to a 57-50 lead. However, it was not to be, as Tech’s shooting was drastically cut down as a result of Clemson’s two-three zone defense that forced turnovers and created poor shot opportunities on the perimeter.

“We didn’t get the ball out quickly. We were walking it up, so it slowed down. Once we get into half court and they are playing the long zone, there is really nowhere you can go to get quality shots. We were especially stunned by how they changed their defense,” Morrow said.

From the 14:18 mark in the second half, Clemson went on a 23-6 run to defeat the Jackets on the road. In the final minutes, solid free-throw shooting propelled the Tigers as Shawan Robinson made 8-10 from the charity stripe during the game.

Tech shot 9-28 in the second half and was 2-12 from behind the three-point line.