Iowa blows out No. 17 Maryland

IOWA CITY, Iowa — A dominant first half proved to be enough for the Iowa Hawkeyes on Sunday, as they routed the 17th-ranked Maryland Terrapins 71-55 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

The Hawkeyes (15-8) are winners of two straight games and sit at 6-4 in Big Ten play, while the Terrapins (19-5) dropped back into a tie for second place of the Big Ten at 7-4.

Maryland struggled from the get-go and Iowa capitalized, jumping out to a 22-3 lead and holding a 40-17 advantage at halftime.

Iowa shot 14 of 23 from the floor during the first half, outrebounded Maryland 30-19 for the entire contest and fed off the energy from the sellout crowd of 15,400 on hand.

As for the Terrapins, everything that could go wrong in the first half did. Maryland shot just 6 of 25 from the floor, while also committing 12 turnovers in the first half. In addition, 13 of the Terrapins’ 17 first-half points came courtesy of freshman guard Melo Trimble, who finished with a game-high 20 points.

Maryland finished shooting 36.7 percent from the floor and turned the ball over 16 times.

“I think our ball movement has been better,” Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said. “You know, we’ve really been unselfish. I think we’ve gotten some transition opportunities, which is critical for us. You can do that more when you get more stops — which we got more stops today — and I think we’re sharing the ball.”

Paving the way for Iowa were forward Aaron White, who had 17 points, and junior center Adam Woodbury, who finished with 16 points on 6-of-7 shooting and also hauled in five rebounds.

“Our ball-screen defense wasn’t great,” Maryland coach Mark Turgeon said. “They scored a lot on ball screens and they did a great job of finding him.”

He was also at the center of controversy during the first half. With Iowa ahead 25-12 inside the six-minute mark, Trimble lost control of the ball after getting poked in the eye by Woodbury. The Hawkeyes got a 3-point bucket in transition from junior forward Jarrod Uthoff while Trimble was down on the floor at the other end. Following a monitor review, Woodbury was called for a flagrant-1 foul and Maryland guard Dez Wells made one of two free-throw attempts.

“I think it was just an accident,” Trimble said. “He tried to make a play on the ball and he just hit me in my eye.”

Trimble added that Woodbury apologized to him after the game while the teams were in the postgame hand shake line, which Woodbury confirmed. This was the second time this season Woodbury has been the center of controversy with poking an opposing player in the eye after cameras caught him doing it twice during an 82-50 loss to Wisconsin on Jan. 20.

“It hasn’t really affected me,” Woodbury said. “You guys (media) have asked a lot of questions and that’s all I’ve really had to do. It is what it is. Like I said after the Wisconsin game, I’m not going to change the way I play and as you see, I haven’t been.”

Moments later, White was looking to score in transition off another Terrapin turnover when Wells went up to foul him. Wells was only called for a shooting foul, but ended up scratching White above the eye. White said he didn’t believe Wells’ foul was retaliation for what happened to Trimble.

“I kind of like Euro-d so the ball was in front of my face,” White said. “Any contact that he would have made with my eye wouldn’t have been a big deal because the ball was there. I was bleeding at the time, but since the ball was there, it was just kind of a weird play.”

White was one of three Hawkeye players who finished with double figures in scoring. Joining him and Woodbury was sophomore guard Peter Jok, who had 15 points.

Tension remained high on both benches during the second half. Maryland got within 15 points of Iowa thanks to 5-of-10 shooting from 3-point range in the second half, but the Terrapin bench was called for a technical foul following a call reversal that gave Iowa possession with10:11 remaining. From that point on, the Hawkeyes were in the bonus.

Besides Trimble’s 20 points