Maryland Basketball: Wisconsin Ends Terps 27-Game Home Winning Streak

Maryland basketball suffered their first loss at home in 27 games after a 70-57 loss to the Wisconsin Badgers on Saturday night.

The Maryland Terrapins can be beaten at home.

The Terps 27-game winning streak and undefeated record in conference play at XFINITY Center came to an end as Wisconsin handed the Terps their most disappointing loss of the season in a 70-57 drubbing.

Vitto Brown lead the Badgers with 21 points after failing to score any in the loss last month in Madison. Nigel Hayes added 14 points, going 4-of-5 from long range.

Terps guard Melo Trimble had his worst performance of the season, going 1-of-14 from the field. Trimble was one of three players to finish with 10 points (Diamond Stone and Jake Layman), while Rasheed Sulaimon led Maryland with 17.

Maryland was sloppy all night long as the little things that have seemed to haunt them all came back to bite them tonight. Turnovers were once again a problem for Maryland as they committed 10 in the fist half alone. They were uncharacteristically bad from the charity stripe tonight, and the rebounding woes continue to plague them.  

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The first half for the Terps was downright awful basketball. The Badgers jumped out to an early 7-2 lead after Maryland would go five minutes without a basket. Little did we know that would be nothing compared to what was to come.

The Terps used a 12-0 run to take their only lead of the half, but that is when things really got ugly for Mark Turgeon’s group. Rasheed Sulaimon hit a three with 13:35 remaining in the half to make it a 14-7 game. That is when the Badgers began a 20-0 run in which the Terps would go nearly 11 minutes without a field goal. Coincidentally, it was another Sulaimon three-pointer that ended the drought for the Terps.

The end of the first half finished with some controversy as Diamond Stone found himself in a mixup with Vitto Brown on the floor. Stone was very fortunate not to be given a flagrant two and thrown out of the game for this cheap shot.

Wisconsin entered halftime with a 36-21 advantage and the Terps undefeated streak at home was on the line. Robert Carter opened the second half with a thunderous dunk and Maryland slowly started creeping their way back into the game.

Layman’s converted three-point play with 14:15 remaining got the Terps deficit back into single digits, but Brown hit a three to get the Badgers lead back to 10. Jaylen Brantley made plays on back-to-back possessions, finishing an easy layup and finding Stone under the basket for a two-handed jam that brought the Terps within six points with just over 10 minutes remaining in the game.

Brantley missed a three that would have cut the lead to four and Wisconsin had an answer like they did most of the night. Bronson Koenig nailed a three and Brown’s tip-in on the next possession got the Badgers back over double digits.

The Terps have allowed teams to out hustle them on the offensive glass and that came back to bite them with just under five minutes remaining. Maryland gave up a horrendous offensive rebound off a free throw and the result was a Zak Showalter – no, we don’t like this Showalter – three to give the Badgers a 56-45 lead. A few possessions later, Showalter converted a layup off another offensive rebound to stretch the game to 61-48.

Wisconsin would close out the game by hitting seven free throws and it was only fitting that a Brown dunk closed out the scoring for the Badgers.

Next: Maryland Should Be No. 1 Team in the Polls

Maryland (22-4, 10-3 Big Ten) had an opportunity to stay atop the standings in the conference following Indiana’s victory over Iowa on Friday night. Instead, the Terps are now a half game back from the aforementioned teams with a huge showdown at Assembly Hall to close out the regular season.

Next up is a road game at Minnesota on Thursday. This should be a pretty routine game for Maryland basketball as the Gophers have yet to win a game in conference play this season. Tip off is scheduled for 8:00 p.m. and the game can be seen on the Big Ten Network.