Maryland basketball vs. Northwestern final score, with 3 things to know from the Terps’ 74-64 win

Behind a career night from Melo Trimble, Maryland basketball got its best win of the season so far at Northwestern, bringing home a 74-64 victory from Welsh-Ryan Arena Wednesday night.

Northwestern, which was without leading scorer Scottie Lindsey, couldn’t buy a bucket against the Terps. The Wildcats shot 32 percent en route to only 22 first-half points, and couldn’t make up that difference in the second half.

Meanwhile, Trimble scored a career-high 32 points on only 17 shots in one of his best games as a Terp. He rebounded from a slump to hit his first four three-pointers, and had almost half of Maryland’s offense. Trimble scored 24 of Maryland’s first 51 points, and didn’t see a teammate reach double figures until Damonte Dodd’s layup with under two minutes remaining.

Maryland got out to a 9-2 start before going cold for four straight minutes. But a Northwestern surge didn’t get any closer than 9-6. Northwestern shot miserably in the first half, ending the period shooting 32 percent, and only hitting two of 12 three-pointers.

Trimble had 13 points on only seven shots in the first half, helping the Terps extend their advantage.

A Jackson-Trimble-Dodd exchange followed by a Trimble and-1 gave Maryland a 32-22 halftime lead.

Northwestern couldn’t contain Trimble in the second half, either. He kept on driving to the hoop and the Wildcats didn’t have an answer. His and-1 with 7:28 left gave Maryland a 20-point lead, which Northwestern quickly cut down to 12. This had the potential to become another one of Maryland’s late collapses when a Sanjay Lumpkin layup cut the lead to nine points with 3:16 left. But Dodd hit a layup with under two minutes left to push the lead back to 11.

Northwestern extended the game by fouling, but couldn’t get any closer than eight points. Maryland is 22-4, and now heads to Wisconsin on Sunday for a game that could have massive conference tournament seeding implications.

Three things to know

1. Maryland got an important win. Maryland has six games left, and even though Northwestern didn’t have Lindsey, this was probably the second-hardest of the bunch. Now even if the Terps do lose on Sunday at Wisconsin, they’ve captured a win against one of the top teams in the Big Ten.
2. Melo Trimble was back. After three off nights, Trimble came back and supplied an unusually large portion of the points, even for him. He didn’t even need to get to the line to score his points, as only four of his points came at the stripe.
3. Northwestern had a really bad night offensively. The Wildcats were just off from the get go. Part of this is probably due to Lindsey not being there (though he wasn’t active in their win over Wisconsin either), but they couldn’t score consistently. Maryland didn’t have a stellar defensive performance, but did just enough.