Julian Reese received a pass from Jahmir Young on a fastbreak. The big man hop-stepped into the paint and elegantly placed the ball through the net in one swift motion.
Seconds later, Reese camped himself in the paint for a defensive possession. Jeremiah Williams charged toward the rim against Young before decelerating and releasing a left-handed floater.
Reese was having none of it.
He swatted the ball with his left hand, sending the ball beyond the baseline camera operators and into the Target Center’s first row. Reese’s sequence gave Maryland men’s basketball its largest lead and punctuated a dominant showing in an eventual 65-51 win over Rutgers in the first round of the Big Ten tournament Wednesday.
“Our defense has kept us in every game,” coach Kevin Willard said.
Reese finished with 12 points and six rebounds. He was supplemented with strong showings from Donta Scott and Jamie Kaiser Jr., who poured in 16 and 11 points, respectively.
The Terps held the Scarlet Knights far below their usual scoring output and eclipsed their own season averages in rebounds, assists and three-point efficiency.
The all-around performance pushed No. 12-seeded Maryland to the second round, where it will face Wisconsin on Thursday.
Maryland and Rutgers split the two-game season series, with both sides winning in the opposing team’s arena. The Scarlet Knights won the first clash in a defensive battle, 56-53, before the Terps punched back with a 17-point win at the RAC a few weeks later.
Maryland’s dominance started early. The Terps jumped out to an 11-0 lead in the game’s opening minutes and drilled five of their first six shots. Four of those makes were threes courtesy of Scott, Kaiser Jr. and DeShawn Harris-Smith.
“We’ve shot the ball better on the road,” Willard said. “It just relaxes them and it kind of gets them a chance to understand that, ‘Alright, we’re gonna go play defense, we’re gonna gert stops and now we’re scoring.’ Psychologically it’s just a big difference.”
Young was the last starter to join the scoring column. The fifth-year guard’s supporting cast carried the load early, converting on nine of the Terps’ first 12 made field goals.
While Maryland’s offense grabbed a sizable lead early, the defense kept it. KenPom’s 11th-ranked adjusted defense held the Scarlet Knights nearly nine points below its first half season scoring average. They shot just 31 percent in the first half and 2-of-11 from three.
An emphatic Reese block against Rutgers forward Clifford Omoruyi nearly four minutes into the contest set Maryland’s defensive tone. The thud alerted the Scarlet Knights, who own the Big Ten’s worst scoring offense, they would be in for another long night offensively.
Maryland led by double digits for 17 minutes in the first half and went into the break with a 14-point advantage. Seven out of the Terps’ eight rotation players broke into the scoring column in the first 20 minutes. Scott and Kaiser led the scoring with nine and eight points, respectively.
The second half brought more of the same. Maryland opened with an 11-2 run, opening their largest lead of the game following a Reese jumper with just over 17 minutes to go.
Maryland’s lead shrunk to as little as 14, but the game was never in question. The Terps dominated from start to finish and advanced to see another day.
“They’re frustrated, they’re disappointed with the way the season’s ended,” Willard said. “But just getting them to understand how close we really were. It’s not like we were getting blown out, it’s not like we weren’t in any games.”
