CLEMSON -  The Maryland Terrapins (14-6, 4-2) went into Littlejohn Coliseum Sunday evening in front of 10,000 Tigers fans, looking to defend their number one ACC ranking by trying to take advantage of a struggling, ailing Clemson Tigers (16-6, 4-4) team; they did neither.

 

Maryland fought hard defensively throughout the game but bad offense combined with Clemson’s frustrating ball-hawking defense  was too much for the Terrapins’ single facetted performance to leave South Carolina with a win. In an ugly game to watch—where both teams had a combined 47 turnovers, and shot 34.6 % (Maryland) and 31.9% (Clemson)—the 21st ranked Tigers were able to eek out ahead of the ACC’s top team 62-53.

Maryland freshman Jordan Williams recorded a double-double leading his team in points and rebounds at 13 each. But Tigers’ center Jerai Grant stepped in for a struggling Trevor Booker (10 and 16) with 18 points and 12 rebounds to keep the Tigers ahead of Maryland until Booker was ready to seal the win late in the second half.  

Clemson, who had lost its previous three ACC matches this season, had decided to take a step back and focus on defending and rebounding before Sunday’s game. “I thought our team did a good job of adjusting to who we are,” head coach Oliver Purnell went on to explain.” “If we continue to rebound and defend like that, we’ll be awfully good. We have to be a better defensive team than we had been coming into tonight.

No sooner than Maryland players were able to take off their warm-ups, Clemson jumped out to an early nine point lead on the strength of two big three pointers from guards Tanner Smith and Andre Young. Maryland was able to fight back (something the Terps would be doing a lot of throughout the course of the game) to tie at 16, with about half the first period remaining. But Clemson answered with the second of its many runs, outscoring Maryland 13-6 to end the half up 29-22.

Both team’s stars struggled as Maryland’s Greivis Vasquez got into early foul trouble and was limited to two points. Clemson’s flu-bitten Booker also struggled offensively, recording only one point while going “0-for” on all his attempts from the field in the first half.

“Clemson’s defense was good tonight. We did some good things, such as guarding Trevor Booker,” said head coach Gary Williams.” “But then he hit that big three.”

Maryland opened the second half down, and still stymied by Clemson’s barricade of a defense, but eventually was able to fight back with a 12-4 run. The Terps forced Clemson into 10 turnovers in nine minutes during the run while going 13-for-15 at the foul line to finally take a lead in the game at 48-46.

But all of the fight the Terrapins had in them to finally come back in the second half seemed to zap them of the energy needed to sustain the lead and close out the Tigers. With 3:23 remaining and Clemson leading by a point, Booker broke out of many a slump and was able to knock down his first 3-pointer since Midnight Madness to give the Tigers a 57-53 lead.

Booker’s three came after what appeared to be a Terrapins breakdown. As Maryland scrambled on help defense and as the shot clock dwindled, Booker found himself wide open and hit the shot (his first three in nine games) that pretty much put Maryland away.

“We came up with some big plays in the second half to preserve the win,” Purnell simply put it.

Maryland still had a slight chance after the Booker shot, but Vasquez was called for an offensive foul when, on a drive to the basket, Smith flung his head back as Vasquez blew by him to insight a foul call from the referee. Replay clearly showed no contact from Vasquez’s elbow to Smith’s face, but the Clemson guard did a great job of selling the fake. Finally on Maryland’s last realistic chance to cut into the lead, after a timeout, the Terrapins worked the ball around beautifully and before he knew it guard Adrian Bowie was wide open for a 3-point attempt. Maybe it was due to the poor shooting night of he and his teammates or maybe the Clemson defense successfully got into his head, but instead of shooting, Bowie drove into the lane and was greeted by three Tigers—one of which included Bowie, Maryland native Grant and his career high five blocks.

Maryland ended up losing while only hitting one field goal in the last five minutes of the half and while defensively the Terrapins were on par with the Tigers, they just could not finish out defensive possessions with rebounds off of missed shots as Clemson was able to grab 20 offensive rebounds, which was one shy of being half of Maryland’s total rebounding effort.

“Clemson’s defense was good tonight,” said Coach Williams. “We just got outrebounded; neither team shot the ball well and offensive rebounding was a factor.”

Grant, who was arguably the player of the game, took one last parting shot at Coach Williams’ program.

“I realized I needed to step up my game and score more points and help the team. Basically, I knew when I went over my average in the first half I was having a good game. But beating Maryland is special because they didn’t recruit me.”

The loss ends the Terps’ four-game win streak and leaves five days before a 9pm rematch with Florida State, this time in Tallahassee.