Maryland beat Temple 76-69, advance in 2019 Orlando Invitational
In the first round of the 2019 Orlando Invitational, fifth-ranked Maryland squeak out the W against the Temple Owls, winning 76-69.
Maryland has consistently started every game slowly this season while Temple came out firing. The Owls started 4-7 from beyond the arc and were leading 16-7 early on. Maryland went on 9-0 run tie the game a little under halfway through the half, but Temple had outrebounded the Terps 22-19 (10-8 offensively) in the first half that lead to many second chance points and shot 35% from three-point range to lead 34-29 at the half. Temple went into the locker room with two players scoring in double figures while Maryland only had Cowan, all three had 10 points. The next leader in scoring for Maryland was Aaron Wiggins with 5.
Maryland started off the second half with a Jalen Smith assist to Anthony Cowan and he took it from there adding a spectacular layup and three to bring the Terps within 1. Two successful free throws from Eric Ayala put the Terps up 38-37, their first lead in the game since they lead 3-2 in the first half. Temple didn’t give up and scored 5 straight points that to coach Mark Turgeon calling a timeout. From there it was back and forth as both teams traded the lead throughout the rest of the half, but it was an Eric Ayala three-point basket with a minute left that sealed the win for Maryland.
It was truly the Anthony Cowan show as he lead all scorers with a career high 30 points. Eric Ayala and Jalen Smith both contributed 13 and 12 points respectively with Smith also pulling in 9 boards. Alani Moore lead the Owls with 22 points while J.P. Moorman II contributed 14 points of his own and 9 rebounds.
An important stat to note is that both teams committed a season high in turnovers with Maryland turning the ball over 15 times to Temple’s 13. The team average for the season is 10. This is Maryland’s first win of the season that was not by double digits.
The Terps will play Harvard in second round, who beat Texas A&M, 62-51. Catch the second round action of the 2019 Orlando Invitational on ESPN2 tomorrow, game time starts at 11:30 AM.
