A night earlier they took care of the No. 9 team in the nation, but No. 7 proved too tough to handle for the Utah basketball team Tuesday night at the Maui Invitational.
The youthful Utes, trying to duplicate their upset victory over Indiana 24 hours earlier, stayed in the game until the final minutes before falling to Maryland 90-78 at the Lahaina Civic Center.Joe Smith, last year's national freshman of the year, proved why he is a preseason all-American and a future lottery pick in the NBA as the 6-foot-10 center scored 33 points and hauled down 10 rebounds for the Terrapins.
Smith's performance offset a sparkling game by Utah sophomore Keith Van Horn, who scored 28 points, despite only playing 22 minutes because of foul trouble.
Next up on Utah's journey through the Top 20 is No. 13-ranked Michigan, which was defeated by Arizona State earlier Tuesday by a 79-62 score. The Utes meet the Wolverines today at 5 p.m. MST for third place in the tourney.
"Maryland is very good - they're a Top 5 team," said Ute coach Rick Majerus. "The difference tonight was that Maryland is just a lot better than us."
Majerus's last statement was in response to a question about the officiating. The Terrapins were outscored by three field goals but shot twice as many free throws as the Utes, 44 to 21.
Rather than question the officials, Majerus criticized his own team's defense, particularly that of Van Horn, who fouled out after playing barely half the game.
"Van Horn's fouls were all bad fouls - reaches and grabs," he said. "The sad thing about Keith is that he's got to outscore the other team because he doesn't defend anybody."
Offensively, there was nothing to complain about the fluid Van Horn, who impressed the sellout crowd with an array of inside moves and some deadly outside shooting. He made 10 of 14 shots, including three of four from 3-point range.
"I got a chance to get in the flow better tonight," said Van Horn, who scored just 15 the night before. "But even though we did a number of things offensively, obviously we didn't step up defensively."
Brandon Jessie played well, scoring 19 points for the Utes, but he also talked defense afterward.
"That's one of the best teams in the nation," he said. "We have a few defensive lapses, and we need to improve on that. We'll come back strong against Michigan."
Throughout most of the first half Tuesday, the Utes stayed even with the Terps. In fact at nearly every TV timeout, they were tied - at 10-10, 23-23 and 36-36. After the last one, Maryland went ahead for good as Duane Simpkins, who finished with 20 points on the night, sank a trey, Exree Hipp sank two free throws and Wayne Bristol scored inside.
Later Simpkins scored the last five points of the half to give Maryland a 50-41 halftime lead. Majerus was not happy when Ma Jian fired up a shot with 10 seconds left as the Utes were going for the last shot. Instead of a possible five-point deficit, it ballooned to nine points when Simpkins made a layup. Ma didn't return to the game until the one-minute mark, and he replaced the fouled-out Terry Preston.
Utah came back and made its patented run in the second half. It cut the lead to five when Jessie scored on an inside move with six minutes left. But Van Horn fouled out with 4:20 left, and the Utes had no one to turn to as the Terps extended their lead down the stretch.
Maryland pressed Utah the entire game, either with a three-quarter or half-court trap. That wasn't a surprise to the Utes, who were given a half a dozen Maryland tapes by Indiana after the Hoosiers didn't need them any more. Actually the Utes did well against the constant pressure.
"We handled the press very well," said Majerus. "We felt we had to prepare for the press to win. Where we got hurt was on defense because they just pounded the ball in on us all night."
The Utes will face a similar type team to Maryland when it faces Michigan today.
"It's going to be very difficult because they're a terrific team," said Majerus. "So far we've played No. 9, No. 7 and now No. 13 . . . and we're No. 131. But that's why we came here, to play against these good teams."
MAUI NOTES: Arizona State showed why it might be one of the nation's surprise teams this year as it broke away from a 38-38 halftime tie to win by 17 . . . Former Richfield High and BYU player Ryan Cuff played just four minutes in Tuesday's ASU win and was 0-for-1 following up on his 0-for-5 performance the previous night. All of the shots have been from 3-point range . . . Indiana bounced back from its disappointing loss to Utah to down Chaminade 92-79. The Hoosiers were to meet Tulane, which edged Texas A&M 76-74, in the fifth-place game . . . Utah's Michael Doelac had a another fine game with 10 points on 4-of-5 shooting . . . Utah outrebounded Maryland 34-30. The Utes were a mere 5-of-21 from 3-point range, compared to Maryland's 5-of-10.