Men's Basketball Postgame Notes: No. 4 Maryland 76, No. 2 Illinois 63

Nov. 27, 2001

The 76-63 victory over No. 2 Illinois marks the first Maryland top 5 victory in Cole Field House since the unranked Terps knocked off No. 1 North Carolina, 89-83, on Jan. 14, 1998. It is the first battle of top 5 teams won by the Terps at Cole Field House since Jan. 16, 1975 when John Lucas and the No. 5 Terps downed No. 4 NC State, 103-85. It also gives the Terrapins a 3-2 series advantage over the Illini after splitting the first four match-ups and trading wins in 1999-00 and 2000-01.

In all games, Illinois is the highest-ranked opponent the Terps have defeated since downing No. 2 Stanford in the NCAA West Regional on March 24, 2001.

With the win, Maryland extends its season win streak to four games and its national-leading non-conference home court victory streak to 80 games. Illinois is the highest-ranked opponent downed by the Terps during that streak. Dating to last season, Maryland has won 14 of its last 17 overall and its last six games at Cole Field House.

Maryland's 13-point win marked the largest margin of victory over a top 25 team since the NCAA victory over No. 2 Stanford.

The Terrapins held Illinois to 22-60 (.367) shooting from the field, marking the fourth game in a row Terp opponents have shot under 40%. Dating to last season, ten of the Terps' last 14 foes have been kept below .400, while 12 of Maryland's last 13 opponents have failed to shoot above 44%.

The Terps scored 24 points on 15 Illinois turnovers, vs. 13 Illini points on 10 Maryland giveaways.

Illinois won the battle of the boards in Tuesday's meeting, but not by nearly as much as the last time the Terps and Illini have clashed. In the Maui Invitational semifinal on Nov. 21 of last season, the Illini posted a 55-37 rebounding advantage en route to a 90-80 win over the Terps. Tonight's 40-35 margin was not enough to stop Maryland's 46% shooting from the field. The Terps are 3-0 when outrebounding opponents and 1-1 when trailing an opponent on the boards this season.

Juan Dixon has scored 20 points or more in four of five games this year. His 13 points in the first half alone matched his scoring total against Delaware State on Nov. 17 of this season. Dixon missed only his first free throw of the season, moving to 13-of-14 (.929) on the year with a near-perfect 5-of-6 performance on Tuesday. Before Tuesday Dixon had not been errant from the stripe since March 24, 2001 (six games ago) when he went 1-for-2 against Stanford in the NCAA West Region Final. He is a career .832 free throw shooter.

With 19 points against Illinois on 8-of-13 shooting from the floor, Chris Wilcox set a new career-high in scoring for the second game in a row. He scored 16 against Delaware State and added a career-most 10 rebounds for his first-ever double-double.

Led by the career-high individual effort of point guard Steve Blake (four blocks), Maryland registered 10 blocked shots to Illinois' 3, including a 6-2 halftime advantage. It was biggest "block party" thrown by a Maryland team since the Terps' 69-54 victory over Clemson in Cole on Feb. 4 of last season (10 blocks). Blake's former career-high in blocks was two, which he had registered two times before and eclipsed with three rejections in the first half. Blake also added 10 points and nine assists to narrowly miss his first double-double of the season.

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