Men’s Basketball

Northwestern traveled to Maryland looking for its first-ever true road win against the Terrapins, but the Wildcats fell woefully short, losing 73-57 on Saturday.

Maryland (17-10, 6-8 Big Ten) started hot, taking a 28-14 lead early in the first half, and NU (15-11, 6-7) couldn’t catch up from there. A 3-pointer by senior guard Scottie Lindsey cut the deficit to five late in the first half, but the Cats would never get closer than that for the rest of the game.

“The start of both halves were huge, for them and against us,” coach Chris Collins said. “Maryland deserved to win. They played very well.”

Lindsey led NU in scoring, putting up 20 points on 20 shots, but he couldn’t keep up with Maryland guard Kevin Huerter, who scored 22, including his first three attempts from long range to pace the Terrapins to their large early lead.

The Cats had trouble containing the hosts from deep all game. Maryland started 7-of-10 from 3-point range and finished the game shooting 43 percent from behind the arc.

NU was solid from 3-point range as well, shooting almost 38 percent, but the Cats made only 10 of their 33 attempts from inside the arc. Senior guard Bryant McIntosh didn’t score, committed three turnovers and only had one assist in his final game in College Park.

“We could just never free him up for clean looks,” Collins said. “We understood that it was a big game for us and for them. They were the ones that threw the first punch. They were the ones that dictated the tempo and the way the game was played, and because of that, they won.”

Redshirt sophomore Aaron Falzon — who has been the only consistent contributor off the bench recently — once again led that group in scoring with 8 points. Falzon is responsible for 11 of NU’s 22 bench points over the past three games.

Falzon and freshman guard Anthony Gaines were the only bench players who played more than seven minutes Saturday. With junior guard Jordan Ash out with a lower body injury and Collins seemingly reluctant to play other members of the team, the starters were forced to carry a heavy load.

The Cats only had two players in double figures: Lindsey and junior center Dererk Pardon, who had 12. Maryland actually scored fewer bench points — only nine — but had four starters score 10 or more points.

“Everybody that played, played well,” Maryland coach Mark Turgeon said. “Once we locked in, that’s as good as we’ve been defensively. We played shots, we rebounded better in the second half and just did a lot of good things.”

NU’s chances of receiving another at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament took another hit with the loss. While this year’s squad took down No. 20 Michigan at home, the rest of the team’s resume is marked with disappointing road losses and unimpressive victories.

The Cats opened the season ranked No. 19 in the country, but have already tallied more regular season losses than last year’s record-breaking team.

“It’s disappointing. We’d won four of our last five. We were feeling good about how we were playing, starting to hit our stride,” Collins said. “But we came up short. We were outplayed today.”

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