Last night at the Comcast Center, the Terps picked up a huge home victory over the Florida State Seminoles 78-62. The win puts Maryland (18-10, 7-6) back in the bubble discussion as they picked up their first win over a top 50 RPI school. So if you had February 23 as the day the Terps got their first top 50 RPI victory, you win the prize. The Terps were led by Terrell Stoglin who put in 17 points and came up huge but they had a balanced scoring attack across the board. Jordan Williams had 11 points and 11 boards, Dino Gregory added 14 points and Adrian Bowie had 12.
The Seminoles (19-8, 9-4) were again playing without their star player, Chris Singleton, who broke his foot when they won over Virginia on February 12. They were led by Derwin Kitchen with 16 and Deividas Dulkys with 14.
The game was a game of runs. The Seminoles jumped out to an early 9-2 advantage. Then Maryland went on a mini 6-0 run to put them up 19-18. A little bit after that, the Terps spurted to 8-1 run putting them up 34-25. However, to close the half, the Seminoles went on a 10-2 run to put the halftime score at 38-37 Maryland. However, at the start of the second half, Maryland went on a 22-10 spurt making it 60-47. Fortunately, the Seminoles didn’t have the fire power to come back with Singleton out.
The Terps shot 52% for the game and were only the second team this season to shot better than 50% against the nation’s top field goal percentage defense. With the win, it makes the trip to Chapel Hill this weekend a lot bigger since Maryland needs to continue to add to their NCAA resume.
