Maryland (13-3, 2-1) won its 7th straight game Tuesday night despite the season-ending injury to sophomore forward Justin Jackson.
“Everybody knows we got unlucky with injuries. But we adjust,” senior center Michal Cekovsky said. “We’ve got great length. We’re still deep, even with those injuries. We had a really good game, so it feels good.”
The Terps had to “re-invent” their line up to account for the loss of their star-sophomore, utilizing their big men to pick up the slack. 7-foot-1 Michal Chekovsky contributed 10 points, and six rebounds and freshman Bruno Fernando had 17 points and 11 rebounds.
Some say a picture is worth a 1,000 words…
We say this one is worth a whole lot more! pic.twitter.com/Q4dK1OULU5
— Maryland Basketball (@TerrapinHoops) January 3, 2018
“I feel confident with Ceko guarding a perimeter guy with his length – he’s smart, he’s been around,” said Mark Turgeon.
Kevin Huerter was quiet in the first half but willed the Terps to victory at the end, scoring all of his 13 points in the final 12 minutes of the game.
Anthony Cowan also had a big game. He was on the court for a career-high 40 minutes and dropped 18 points and led the team with four assists. Fernando also played for a career-high 32 minutes, as well as his first double-double. Despite the extended minutes for his players, Turgeon is confident in his team’s conditioning, “Anthony could go play another 40 right now.”
Maryland looked more disciplined than they had all year. They only turned the ball over five times and only committed 12 fouls compared to Penn State’s 24 fouls and six turnovers.
“Anthony had a lot to do with that. And we tried to dictate the pace a little bit with our offense, we’re still trying to figure that out,” said Turgeon.
Maryland will need to get past this victory quickly as they prepare to face the nations #1 team in Michigan State on Thursday night.
Terps Open 2018 Season with 4-0 Mark 
No.9 Terps DESTROY No.10 South Carolina 
Terps Gearing Up For #1 Michigan State
Leave a Reply