For the second straight night, a Big Ten team ranked in the top 10 fell in a shocking road upset.
Wednesday night, it was fourth-ranked Iowa getting bested by Penn State. Thursday night, it was sixth-ranked Maryland getting upended at Minnesota, the Gophers scoring the big upset by a 68-63 final score.
It was the first conference win of the season for Minnesota, which snapped a jaw-droppingly long 14-game losing streak.
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The Gophers had a double-digit lead at the break after the Terps shot just 35.5 percent over the first 20 minutes. Minnesota made seven first-half 3-pointers as Maryland turned the ball over eight times in the first half.
Despite woeful second-half shooting by the Gophers, the Terps only slightly dented that lead over the second half's first 10 minutes, Minnesota keeping its double-digit advantage for the majority of that stretch. But thanks to seven straight points for the Terps in the middle of the half, the gap was just five with nine and a half minutes to play. Rasheed Sulaimon hit a 3 and then two free throws to make it just a two-point game with seven minutes to go, and a Melo Trimble bucket had the gap at just a point about two minutes later. Another Sulaimon 3 gave the Terps their first lead at 61-60 with two minutes to play, but Joey King snatched that lead right back with a pair of free throws a minute later, a lead the Gophers didn't surrender the rest of the way. That Sulaimon triple was Maryland's last made basket of the night, as the Terps went 0-for-5 from the field, turned the ball over twice and missed a free throw in the game's final three minutes. Meanwhile, during that same span, Minnesota went 7-for-8 from the free-throw line.
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Trimble made one of the game's biggest head-scratching plays late, as after a Jake Layman steal ended up in his hands in a one-point game with 27 seconds left, the point guard immediately coughed the ball up and back over to the Gophers, his sixth turnover of the evening.
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Minnesota pulled off the huge upset despite shooting just 33.3 percent from the field on the game and just 20 percent from the field in the second half. The Gophers made just six baskets over the final 20 minutes, including a 1-for-10 performance from behind the 3-point line. But the Terps weren't much better shooting the ball, shooting 37.5 percent on the game.
Nate Mason scored a team-high 18 points for Minnesota, albeit on 5-for-15 shooting. Jordan Murphy scored 17 points on 5-for-15 shooting. And King added 15 points.
Sulaimon was really the only Terp to do significant damage, scoring a game-high 28 points, hitting four 3s and going 8-for-10 from the free-throw line. Layman finished with 11 points. Trimble scored 10 points on 3-for-11 shooting, and Robert Carter Jr. had just eight points on 3-for-12 shooting.
The loss was a bad one for Maryland, coming against a team that hadn't won a game since mid-December. It's the second straight loss for the Terps, who now sit at 22-5 overall and 10-4 in the Big Ten. The loss meant Maryland missed its opportunity to force a three-way tie for first place in the Big Ten alongside Indiana and Iowa. Next up is a Sunday game against Michigan, which handed Maryland its first conference loss last month.
Minnesota's whopping 14-game losing streak ended as the team improved to 7-19 overall and 1-13 in the league. Next up is a Tuesday-night battle with winless Rutgers.