Badly needing a win, Indiana couldn't get it done against Maryland, falling to the Terrapins 79-78. That's not to say the Hoosiers didn't play well down the stretch, because they did, but IU let it slip away in the final possession of a game it fought hard enough to win.
Indiana turned a 10-point Maryland lead into a 5-point lead of its own with 3:07 left in the ballgame, using a 22-7 run to do so and playing some great basketball during that stretch.
Myles Rice hit three 3-pointers, while the Hoosiers went 9-for-11 from the floor, playing its best basketball when it mattered most and giving the Assembly Hall crowd something to cheer about, resulting in what may have been the loudest roar the Hall has seen all season.
It didn't end there though, as while UMD fought back, IU responded with another Leal 3-point play, which gave the Hoosiers a 4-point lead with 38 seconds remaining.
"We executed to get back into the game" Mike Woodson said postgame, mentioning that his team was in a very good spot "on the free-throw line with the one-and-one, up two with, I think, 20-something seconds on the clock."
This ended a stretch of play that, most of the time, would've given Indiana a deserved win, but this time the Hoosiers let up 38 seconds too early.
IU allowed Maryland to score the final five points of the game, with crucial errors in the last 30 seconds leading to their own demise.
"You've got to make plays down the stretch, and I got to get them to understand that" Woodson said, explaining further by saying "we missed a big front end of a one-and-one that could have put us back up three or four. It was just the little things that we didn't execute coming down the homestretch."
This one-and-one situation he referred to was when Trey Galloway stepped to the line with 22 seconds left in the game, bouncing the front end off the rim, allowing the Terps to secure possession with a Derik Queen rebound.
But before that, IU gave up an easy basket on the defensive end, allowing Ja'Kobi Gillespie to score off a jumper in the painted area that, if missed, would've essentially sealed the game for Indiana.
The Hoosiers were still firmly in the driver's seat though, as with a 2-point lead and a chance to make if four with a couple free throws, Indiana was still in control before Galloway's missed free throw.
Despite this, Galloway's missed opportunity gave UMD a chance to tie it or take the lead. Maryland took advantage of Indiana's miscue with a Rodney Rice 3-pointer, giving the Terrapins a 79-78 lead with seven seconds on the clock, though the fact that this shot got off may have ben self-inflicted as well.
"We just didn't get a key stop with a foul to give. The ball scrambled out. The initial thrust of their offense, I thought we played it well. Then when the ball kind of spurted around, we just didn't get up and take the foul like we should have," Woodson said, explaining that he would've liked his team to foul before Maryland could get a shot off, furthering the errors IU made during the final possessions of the game.
Even with Maryland taking the lead from Rice's jumper, hope wasn't lost for the Hoosiers, as they had one more possession to take the lead and escape with a win.
This possession, though, saw what may have been the worst of all the mistakes made to close out the game.
Out of a timeout, Trey Galloway couldn't inbound the ball cleanly, it getting tipped out of bounds by Maryland, giving Indiana even less time to hit a game-winner, now inbounding out of the baseline with three seconds to go.
This resulted in the ball being passed to Myles Rice in the corner who fired off a desperation three, airballing it badly and giving Maryland the 79-78 victory.
"We were trying to fix everything on the fly a little bit in such a heated moment" Rice said, adding "We've got to be better as players. No matter who's in the group and who's on the court, that we can get the play off no matter what. We've just got to be better."
Before this though, there were some questionable substitutions from Indiana, as Oumar Ballo and Anthony Leal were put on the bench in favor of Mackenzie Mgbako and Luke Goode.
"I think we were trying to run a play, but then the substitutions kind of got everybody confused" Rice said, explaining why the final play unfolded the way it did.
A pass into the corner for a fadeaway three was certainly not what was drawn up, raising questions about why Ballo, a 7-footer was subbed out when a basket at the rim was all it would've taken to secure the victory.
This, coupled with the missed opportunity to foul with one to give, added on to the missed free throw from Galloway, plus the easy basket given up beforehand all resulted in a 4-point lead and Indiana's chances at winning being wiped away.
Woodson said that "it's a tough game. We've just got to bounce back," but this was a golden opportunity to secure a Big Ten win in a back-and-forth game, but the final 38 seconds spelled doom for the Hoosiers, resulting in a heartbreaking 79-78 loss to Maryland.
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