Julian Reese had 18 points and nine rebounds and Derik Queen had 12 points and 15 rebounds as No. 4 seed Maryland rolled past No. 13 seed Grand Canyon 81-49 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament’s West Regional on Friday in Seattle.
Ja’Kobi Gillespie had 16 points and Selton Miguel had 13 as they combined for five of the Terrapins’ seven 3-point field goals, helping set a school season record for 3-pointers with 276. The 2016-17 team had 272.
The Terrapins (26-8) have won 16 of their last 17 first-round NCAA Tournament games dating to 1997 and will meet No. 12 seed Colorado State (26-9) in the second round Sunday. Colorado State upset No. 5 seed Memphis 78-70.
Maryland had its largest margin of victory in an NCAA Tournament game.
“We just stayed together as a team and just kept punching and kept punching kept punching and we defended and just — we did everything well that we usually do as a team,” Queen said. “We just went out there and just played hard.”
Tyon Grant-Foster had 23 points but the rest of the Grand Canyon starters combined for only 15 points for the WAC champion Antelopes (26-8), who were seeking a second consecutive first-round win after beating fifth seed Saint Mary’s 75-66 a year ago.
“We see a lot of post play” in the Big Ten, Maryland coach Kevin Willard said. “So for us to flip the switch and go against guards that can get downhill, we hadn’t seen that in a while. So I thought it was really good the fact that these guys really focused in for three days, and really the guards, I challenged the guards to play a little bit more physical defensively and I thought they did a great job.”
With 6-foot-9 Reese and 6-foot-10 Queen dominating inside, the Terrapins had a 44-33 rebounding advantage and a 44-16 advantage in points in the paint. Grand Canyon shot 28.6 percent from the field and was 5-of-23 from 3-point range.
The Terrapins have won 13 of their last 16 games.
The Terrapins used a 18-1 run that began with a Gillespie three-point play to take a 33-13 lead with 5 1/2 minutes to play in the first half. Maryland outscored the Antelopes 31-6 in a longer stretch of the first half to establish control.
Grant-Foster’s 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer, his third three in the final five minutes of the first half, cut Maryland’s halftime lead to 42-28. Grant-Foster made the first basket of the second half, but the Antelopes were never closer than 12.
“I thought they opened the door the first five minutes for us to have a little bit of a lead, and we didn’t capitalize it,” Grand Canyon coach Bryce Drew said. “Once they got the lead it just snowballed. And as they took away a little bit of our energy level, then just we got exposed in a lot of ways.”
Maryland was one of one four Division I programs this season to have all five starters average in double figures. Rodney Rice finished with nine points.
–Field Level Media
