Jacks NCAA Comeback Bid Comes up Just Short

Friday, March 18

Spokane, Wash.

3:20 p.m.

South Dakota State University

26-8

No. 5 Seed Maryland

26-8

South Dakota State

Maryland

3/18/2016 9:30:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

By: SDSU Sports Info

SPOKANE, Wash. – Aesop's fable of the tortoise and the hare held true on Friday, as Maryland jumped out to an early lead over South Dakota State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in Spokane, Wash. The Terrapins then held off a late Jackrabbit charge to secure a 79-74 win in front of 11,109 fans at Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena.

"Really proud of our guys. We just were so bad offensively in the first half. I thought we really competed in the first half and the whole game we competed," head coach Scott Nagy said. "But Maryland played well too. They hit timely shots. And I'm really proud of our kids that they didn't give up. If I had the final play over, I would have called a timeout. We go through these things. We know what play we're running, we knew what to do, but we just had personnel in there that we don't normally have in there in those situations. And so, looking back on it, it would have been way better off for me to call a timeout and made sure we knew what to do."

Both teams end the game with the same 26-8 record, but the loss ends No. 12 seed SDSU's season, while No. 5 seed Maryland moves on to face No. 13 Hawaii, which upset No. 4 seed Cal earlier in the day.

Maryland opened the scoring on its second possession, and scored the first four points of the game before the Jacks got on the board with a Deondre Parks 3-pointer less than two minutes into the game.

The Terrapins answered, and led 8-3 early, but SDSU fought back and tied the game at 10-all on a Reed Tellinghuisen 3-pointer with 12 minutes, 35 seconds left in the first half. Maryland then used a 6-0 spurt put them up 29-20 late in the first half before taking a 34-22 lead into halftime.

SDSU got the ball to start the second half, and got baskets from Jake Bittle and Ian Theisen to shave four points off the lead, but the Terps made five 3-pointers in five straight trips down the floor to increase their lead to 53-35 with a just over 13 minutes left.

Seemingly down for the count, the Jackrabbits kept fighting, and kept chipping away at the lead, eventually whittling it down to 72-10 on a trio of George Marshall foul shots 1:03 on the clock.

The Terps would get the lead back to five points at 76-71 with 18 seconds left, but then fouled Parks on a 3-point shot with 13 seconds left. The senior drained all three to make it 76-74 and then quickly fouled Maryland, which went 1 for 2 from the line, giving SDSU one last attempt to tie the game with 12 seconds left, but the Jacks could not get off a shot, and Maryland avoided the upset.

Parks led three Jackrabbits in double figures with 22 points on 7 of 9 shooting overall and a perfect 3 for 3 mark from distance. Mike Daum scored 16 points off the bench and led the Jacks with six rebounds, while Marshall finished with 15 points.

Jake Layman led Maryland with 27 points, Melo Trimble added 19 and Jared Nickens 14 points off the bench. Robert Carter scored seven points, and led all players in the game with 11 rebounds.

NOTES: Friday's game marked the first meeting with Maryland ... SDSU falls to 36-26 all-time in NCAA Tournament games overall, and to 0-3 at the Division I level ... the teams played in front of 11,109 fans at Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena ... SDSU's 26 wins ties for the second-most in school history (1984-85 and 1997-98), one fewer than the school record of 27 wins (2003-04 and 2011-12) ... Daum scored in double figures in the final 21 games of the season and finishes the season with an SDSU freshman record 518 points ... Parks scored 984 points in his two seasons at SDSU