David Coit had 19 points, Isaiah Watts added 18 off the bench, and the Maryland men’s basketball team celebrated Coach Buzz Williams’s return to Marquette with an emotional 89-82 victory Saturday that was clouded by an apparently significant lower-body injury to star forward Pharrel Payne.
Payne, the Terps’ leading scorer, landed awkwardly after finishing a dunk with 12:16 remaining and began screaming in pain. After Williams ran onto the court to comfort his player, who followed the coach from Texas A&M during the offseason, Payne was stretchered off in obvious discomfort.
Williams told reporters during his postgame news conference that Payne was at a hospital, but he did not yet know the severity of the injury.
“The angle that I saw, it did not appear good,” Williams said. “I know I’m not supposed to run out on the floor, so I was there probably a little longer than I should, and when I got back to the huddle, our kids said, ‘Coach, you got to pray for him.’”
Maryland (3-1), which trailed 58-53 at the time, took control from that point, making an extended 30-13 run for a 12-point lead with under two minutes remaining. Watts had nine points and two three-pointers in that stretch.
“I didn’t talk about ball. We just prayed for him,” Williams said of the team’s huddle after Payne’s injury. “And I do think that their response — not their execution, but their response, and maybe some of the intangible things that are important, whether there’s an injury or not, was great growth for our program.”
Marquette closed to within 83-78 on Ben Gold’s three-pointer with 26.8 seconds remaining, but Watts, Darius Adams and Andre Mills hit two free throws apiece to seal the victory.
Chase Ross scored a career-high 31 points and tied a career high with four three-pointers for the Golden Eagles (3-2).
Gold also had four three-pointers among his 18 points and eight rebounds, and Zaide Lowery had 14 points and eight rebounds for the Golden Eagles, who dominated the glass but could not overcome a 36.8 percent shooting percentage.
Marquette had a 44-35 rebounding edge and turned 20 offensive rebounds into 25 second-chance points. The Terps had six second-chance points.
Williams, in his first season at Maryland, was 139-69 in six seasons at Marquette from 2008 to 2014. He led Golden Eagles to five NCAA tournaments, including three trips to the Sweet 16 and one to the Elite Eight.
Adams added 16 points for the Terps, Mills had 11 and Elijah Saunders had eight points and 11 rebounds.
Marquette missed 16 of 18 field goals during the Terrapins’ game-changing run, after Gold’s three-pointer gave the Golden Eagles a 61-55 lead with 11:43 left .
The Terps shot 52.7 percent. Payne, who averaged 20 points per game entering Saturday, went 6 for 6 from the field. Watt was 5 for 6.
The Terps avenged a 78-74 loss in the home-and home series with a victory exactly one year later.
Information from Field Level Media was included in this report.
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