Maryland Terrapins Down The Morgan State Bears

Mitch Stringer-USA TODAY Sports

The Maryland Terrapins were coming off a tournament championship in the Virgin Islands and could have shown up a little too relaxed to play in-state rival Morgan State.

But, the Terps did not want to experience getting upset like they did five years ago in a one-point loss to the Bears, which was their first ever loss to the school.

Maryland came out running and never looked back. Both Jake Layman and Evan Smotrycz had big-time games and helped lead the Terps to the win.

Layman had a career-best 27 point performance while Smotrycz posted a double-double with 19 points and 12 rebounds.

Even though Layman led the way, this win was about more than one player. This win was about a unified team effort by the Terps that shows everyone this team is growing and learning from their mistakes.

A prime example of this was Nick Faust — a player Maryland fans have grown to love and hate during games because of the uncertainty of his play (Greivis Vasquez anyone?).

Faust is a junior now and is showing some maturity in his play. He is willing to give up shots he normally would take to set up his teammates for an even better shot.

Faust finished the night with eight points, five assists, and four steals. With this team, Faust does not have to be a scorer, he just needs to make the smart plays and play defense.

This was a game Maryland was supposed to win. The way the did it should be encouraging to Maryland fans everywhere as they now get ready to play Ohio State in the ACC/B1G Challenge. Coach Turgeon gave an update on how he views the progress of this team heading into this “B1G” game…

"“We’re a lot better today than we were two weeks ago. This will be our first true road game Tuesday so that’ll be a challenge for us. I like to think we’ll be pretty focused and dialed in. It will be a pretty tough game obviously, but I feel better about our team than I did a week ago.”"

I believe that the players really benefited from the Paradise Jam tournament on a much larger scale than just basketball. This team has all the talent in the world, but they have to continue to learn to play together and be willing to let someone else take the spotlight for a night if that is what will help the team.

Maryland travels to play Ohio State on Wednesday in the ACC/B1G challenge and will tip-off at 7:00PM.

Go Terps!