Just when the Maryland Terrapins had new life in terms of NCAA tournament hopes, they vanished into the cold New England night following a disappointing, 69-58 loss to Boston College.
The victory over Duke seemed like it was months ago after watching Maryland's second half performance. The Terps blew a seven-point lead in the second half. They were outscored by 18 points in the final 20 minutes by a Boston College team that had just three ACC wins on the season and only one of them by double digits before last night.
Maryland was single-handedly carried by Logan Aronhalt, who made seven three-pointers en route to a season-high 26 points, accounting for nearly half of the Terps scoring.
Alex Len, meanwhile, struggled mightily against an undersized Eagles front line. Len finished with just four points and eight rebounds before fouling out in the closing seconds, a terribly disappointing effort after playing so well against Mason Plumlee and Duke.
It was the type of performance that has come to be expected of Len despite the fact that he is considered a top five pick in the NBA Draft should he decide to leave school following the season.
To be fair, Len was hardly the only player who struggled. Jake Layman appeared nervous in the first half, possibly because he was returning home to New England to play in front of family and friends. James Padgett was a total no-show, missing horribly on two shots from the free throw line and failing to score a single point. Dez Wells, Nick Faust and Seth Allen all made contributions but could not do so on a consistent basis.
Even Mark Turgeon wasn't exempt from criticism, yet again being outcoached by one of his colleagues. Turgeon didn't take advantage of Maryland's size advantage at all and made a questionable decision to press in the second half despite the fact that the Terps were having enough trouble as it was defending outside shooters and scrambling for long rebounds.
It became that much more difficult to get a hand up in the face of shooters and grab long rebounds with the press, yet Turgeon continued to use it as the Eagles continued to pull away from Maryland. The Terps were outrebounded 36-29, one of the very few times this season that another team has beat them on the glass.
About the only positive to take away from the loss was that Maryland committed just 12 turnovers, which is less than half the number they had against Duke.
Maryland gets a few days to stew over the loss before hosting the Clemson Tigers Saturday at noon. With five ACC games remaining, the Terps can hold onto the hope that winning out would still be enough to get them into the NCAA tournament, but they have a lot of work left to do.
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