Story By: Sol Tucker
Photos By: Sol Tucker
College Park, MD–
No one said tonight was going to be easy for the Terps… also no one said the team would barely show up to play the #1 Boilermakers in what would end as a lopsided blow out sending Terp fans to the exits at the 8:00 mark of the second half.
Purdue was led by Zach Eady, who comes into this season as the best player in the NCAA this season and again tonight he dominated with 23 points and 12 rebounds. He completely shut down the Terps in the paint game and held Julian Reese to a goose egg on the final stats sheet.
What was impressive about Eady tonight, wasn’t just his scoring, but the ability to get the defense to collapse on him and then get the ball out the perimeter for open shots.
After the game, the focus questions to Terps Head Coach Kevin Willard were about his offensive struggles tonight and whether this was the best team he has seen so far this season.
“By far the best team in the country. It’s not even close,” Willard said. “You look at their schedule, who they’ve played, where they’ve played, it’s the best team in the country. But for them to come in here and do this to us on our home court, that should be a little bit of an eye-opener for everybody.”
Jahmir Young scored 26 points for the Terps, the only Maryland player with more than nine. The poor shooting by Maryland was across the board — 33% from the field, 5 of 22 from 3-point range and 6 of 11 on free throws.
The only other game where Reese was held to practically nothing on stats sheet came when they faced UCLA, where he had just 1 point and 4 rebounds. Tonight, it was almost as if he was afraid to challenge Eady on his shot and a couple of times late in the game looked almost out of place when Eady backed him down in the paint.
Maryland will have a few days to regroup before they hit the road to face Minnesota on Sunday.
