BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Destiny in March might be fickle. Maryland level guard Jahmir Younger made his first seven free throws Thursday. His eighth — with 4.7 seconds left and the Terrapins holding a two-point lead of their first-round NCAA males’s event sport towards West Virginia — trickled across the rim and fell away.
Maryland
Perspective | Maryland endures all March has to offer — and lives to play again
So right here got here Mountaineers guard Kedrian Johnson, futures within the steadiness. From proper close to the large “March Insanity” brand at Legacy Area’s middle court docket, Johnson let it fly. By no definition was it a high-percentage shot. By each definition, it was ulcer-inducing.
“If you happen to can provide up a one-foot runner on the finish of the sport,” Maryland Coach Kevin Willard stated, “you’ll take it.”
Besides generally these one-foot runners — even from 30 toes — go in. That’s why fingernails are frayed, why stomachs flip, why the TV stays on no matter who’s taking part in. One-possession school basketball video games in March, with the clock ticking down? Sure, please.
And but for gamers and coaches, that is all so fragile. The concept that seasons might be deemed successes or failures primarily based on whether or not a last-second heave hits iron or web borders on bonkers. That second when the ball leaves the hand for a closing time — the air is about sucked out of the constructing. For one facet, it’ll end in an extended, quiet flight dwelling. For the opposite, it’ll result in an intensive scouting of high general seed Alabama earlier than a satisfying meal.
“As soon as the ball’s within the air,” Younger stated, “you’re praying it’s not going to go in.”
It didn’t, and the primary survivor in a event that’s outlined by survival was Maryland, a 67-65 winner in Willard’s first NCAA event sport at his new job.
“That is what you’re employed for since summer season started,” senior ahead Hakim Hart stated.
That will have been true irrespective of the place Johnson’s shot ended up. But one way or the other, Maryland’s season feels completely different as a result of it missed.
Here’s a record of issues that occurred to the Terrapins on Thursday: They went scoreless for 7:39 within the first half. Their offense toggled between ugly and atrocious, they usually fell behind by 13. Halfway by means of the half, they’d six factors. Younger picked up his fourth foul with simply greater than 13 minutes left within the sport. West Virginia used a 13-0 run on 4 possessions — back-to-back and-ones from Johnson, a four-point play from Johnson and one other three-pointer — to show a seven-point second-half deficit into an eight-point lead in all of 2½ minutes.
By way of all of it, Willard remained all enterprise. That is the complete expertise of the 2022-23 Terrapins, for whom basketball that’s lovely and basketball that’s laborious to observe might be contained within the stanzas between TV timeouts. It’s why the Terps may have six straight possessions that went like this — turnover, turnover, turnover, Hart miss, turnover, turnover — and Willard may collect his group within the huddle and say, “We’re solely down 9 and we’ve got 4 factors? That’s a celebration on the highway.”
He was solely half-kidding. The Terrapins went 16-1 in Faculty Park this season, 5-11 in all places else. Willard by no means appears rattled by any of it. Although the Terps are uncommonly balanced — all 5 starters scored between 9 and 17 factors Thursday — Younger is with out query their most vital participant as a result of their offense has a troublesome time getting going when he can’t.
Towards the lengthy, robust Mountaineers, he decidedly couldn’t.
“They simply made us query a few passes,” Younger stated. “They obtained a pair deflections and stuff like that. We simply needed to decelerate slightly bit. We have been excited. I really feel like we had a pair nerves coming in.”
Younger entered Thursday having performed 118 school video games at Charlotte and Maryland mixed. None had been within the NCAA event. Willard’s strategy, as Younger coughed up the ball and West Virginia took a 16-4 lead, was to have Younger come be a part of him on the bench.
“At present was like a boxing match,” Willard stated. “He obtained hit a pair occasions. And I feel it simply relaxed him. He was capable of see it.”
Now Younger and the Terps have seen it and felt it. They know they’ll regular themselves even after a putrid begin, and as a substitute of being run out of the event nearly earlier than it began, they led 32-30 on the half. They know they’ll soak up the sort of microwave efficiency placed on by Johnson and reply. They know that when their opponent surges late — West Virginia took a 59-56 lead with 5 minutes left — they’ll fall again on their protection, which then pressured 5 straight scoreless Mountaineers possessions.
They could not be capable to beat Alabama. However they gained’t buckle.
“You get down, you don’t need to get down on yourselves,” senior ahead Donta Scott stated. “At the moment, it’s battle time.”
The Terps can battle — as people and collectively. Surviving takes a village, significantly for Maryland. When Younger drew his fourth foul, the Terps trailed by six. When he returned to the lineup simply greater than six minutes later, the scored was tied. Scott buried the three-pointer that tied it at 59. Julian Reese, who has blossomed over the previous six weeks, produced a dominant stretch that included corralling the free ball that Hart became the go-ahead bucket. Younger hit two late free throws.
And but, when that closing free throw rolled across the rim and fell to the facet, hearts moved into throats.
“You must hope,” Willard stated.
When Johnson rose, Younger stood on the three-point arc, his palms out in what amounted to a frightened pose. Johnson had made 4 threes and scored 27 factors. Why not three extra?
“Each shot I took at this time,” Johnson stated, “I believed it had an opportunity to go in.”
It undoubtedly had an opportunity.
“He’s an inch away from successful the sport for us,” stated Bob Huggins, West Virginia’s Corridor of Fame coach. “It was useless on line. It was useless on line.”
The ball as a substitute bounced harmlessly to the ground. Younger turned to his bench and leaped. Willard put each his palms up so a passing Don Carey may slap them. After which he strode down the sidelines to shake Huggins’s hand, to embrace the gritty Johnson. Maryland’s destiny is to face Alabama on Saturday. It needed to endure all that March has to supply to get that chance.