BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Coach Kevin Willard guided the Maryland men’s basketball team back to the NCAA Tournament. The players repaid the favor by giving Willard his first NCAA postseason win in more than five years.
The No. 8 seed Terps used double-digit scoring from three starters, including a team-high 17 points, nine rebounds, three assists, and three steals by sophomore power forward Julian Reese, to propel themselves to a 67-65 victory over No. 9 seed West Virginia in a first-round game Thursday afternoon at Legacy Arena.
After graduate student point guard Jahmir Young made one of two free throws with four seconds remaining, West Virginia’s Kedrian Johnson’s would-be game-winning 3-point shot hit the front of the rim in the final second.
The showing sends Maryland (22-12) to its third second-round appearance in the last four seasons in which the NCAA Tournament has been run. (The 2020 postseason was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.)
The victory also gave Willard only his second victory in the NCAA Tournament and his first since the 2017-18 campaign when he led Seton Hall, also a No. 8 seed at the time, to a 94-83 win against No. 9 seed North Carolina State on March 15.
The Terps will meet the winner of a first-round game between overall No. 1 seed and SEC regular-season and tournament champion Alabama (29-5) and Southland Conference titlist Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (23-10) on Saturday at a time to be announced. If the opponent is Alabama, the program is 2-3 overall against top seeds in the NCAA Tournament with the last meeting occurring on March 24, 2016, when that squad was defeated by No. 1 Kansas, 79-63, in the Sweet 16.
Maryland has won its last three opening-round games and 15 of its last 16. The lone hiccup in that run occurred in 2017.
The Terps’ victory continued what had been a year of revival. After a 2021-22 season in which coach Mark Turgeon suddenly decided to step down on Dec. 3, 2021, and that squad limped to a 15-17 campaign, they helped Willard become the first coach in program history to guide a team to the NCAA Tournament in his debut.
In addition to Reese’s outing, the Terps got 15 points, four assists, three rebounds and two steals from senior shooting guard Hakim Hart, 11 points, eight rebounds and two steals from senior small forward Donta Scott, and 10 points, three rebounds and three assists from Young.
The Mountaineers’ Johnson was brilliant, however. Neither Young nor junior shooting guard Ian Martinez nor Hart could contain the fifth-year senior point guard, who scored a game-high 27 points on 8-of-13 shooting, including 4 of 8 from 3-point range. Johnson opened the second half by scoring 10 points in a row and 13 of the team’s 16 to give the Mountaineers a 47-38 advantage with 15:05 left.
The beginning might have foretold the ending. After the Terps took a 4-2 lead on back-to-back layups by Hart and Scott with 18:21 left in the first half, the Mountaineers reeled off 14 straight points to assume a 16-4 advantage with 11:07 remaining.
When Young converted a pair of free throws, he ended a drought of 7:39 for Maryland that included six turnovers.
Young’s free throws, in turn, ignited the Terps’ own 18-3 burst capped by his only 3-pointer of the period. That bucket gave Maryland a 22-21 lead for the team’s first since that 4-2 opening.
West Virginia replied with five straight points, but the Terps closed out the final 4:03 of the first half on a 10-4 spurt fueled by four points from Scott. Graduate student power forward Patrick Emilien’s fadeaway jumper with 34 seconds left just before the shot clock expired sent Maryland into halftime with a fragile 32-30 lead.
In that opening frame, the Terps shot 57.9% from the floor (11 of 19) compared to just 39.3% (11 of 28) for the Mountaineers. Although 10 of West Virginia’s 16 rebounds came off the offensive glass and contributed to seven second-chance points, Maryland enjoyed slight edges in points in the paint (16-12) and points off turnovers (11-9).
