Sam Lewis Scores 28 as No. 6 Virginia Rallies Past Maryland 87-83

For 34 minutes, Maryland had Virginia exactly where it wanted. The Terrapins owned the free throw line, turned Cavaliers giveaways into easy offense and held a lead for more than 30 minutes of game clock in front of a red-clad Xfinity Center crowd. Then Sam Lewis decided the night was not going to end that way.

Lewis scored 28 points on 12-of-16 shooting, 17 of them after halftime, and No. 6 Virginia erased an 11-point second-half deficit to beat Maryland 87-83 on Friday night in College Park. Thijs De Ridder added 20 points and seven rebounds, including the three that finally gave the Cavaliers some breathing room, and Johann Grunloh posted 15 points, seven rebounds and three blocks. Virginia moved to 5-0. Maryland fell to 1-2.

It was not pretty, and it was not supposed to be this hard. Virginia committed 17 turnovers, shot 17 of 27 at the line and got outscored by 30 points off the bench. It still won, because its starters shot the lights out in the second half and its best scorer refused to miss inside. The official box score (opens in a new tab) tells the rest.

Maryland Lived at the Line

The first half belonged to Buzz Williams' team, and it was built at the stripe. Maryland went 19 of 24 from the free throw line before the break while Virginia piled up 13 first-half fouls. Pharrel Payne set the physical tone in the post, Kaden House kept attacking off the bench and Mike McNair Jr. gave the Terps a perimeter jolt they badly needed.

The game was tight early, with Maryland nursing a 14-13 edge near the midway point of the half. Then the whistles started to tilt things. McNair drilled a three off a Payne feed, House turned contact into free throws and the Terps stretched the margin to 27-19 with under six minutes left. Virginia kept answering with layups, from Lewis, Elijah Gertrude and Kalu Anya, but could not string together stops.

A Grunloh dunk off a Chance Mallory feed cut the deficit to 40-35 with about a minute left. Maryland responded with a closing burst: a House layup, an Andre Mills dunk and, just before the horn, another McNair three off a D.J. Wagner pass. That sent the Terps to the locker room up 47-36, and the building was loud enough to make it feel like more.

The Ten-Point Wall

Lewis opened the second half the way the Cavaliers needed, scoring Virginia's first five points, including an and-one, and De Ridder followed with a three off a Nolan Adekunle assist. Maryland kept the cushion intact anyway. Wagner's jumper had pushed the lead to its peak at 49-38 early in the half, and every time Virginia crept within five or six, the Terps found an answer.

Payne kept scoring through contact. Wagner, who finished with nine points and five assists, buried a three off a House pass at 13:39. When McNair connected from deep again at 12:51, Maryland led 63-53 with less than 13 minutes to play, and the Cavaliers looked like a team about to absorb its first loss of the season.

This is where Virginia's offense finally found its shape. Grunloh made a free throw, Lewis scored on back-to-back layups, one off a Mallory assist, and De Ridder threw down a dunk on another Mallory feed. Martin Carrere then slipped in for a layup at 9:38, and suddenly a 10-point hole was a 63-62 game. Carrere and Anya combined for only six points, but the timing of Carrere's bucket was worth far more than two.

Lewis Takes Over

Maryland did not fold. McNair hit two free throws, Wagner scored off a House assist, and the Terps led 67-63 with eight minutes left. Grunloh answered with a layup and two free throws to tie it at 67. Tomislav Buljan, who gave Maryland eight points and six rebounds off the bench, went to the line and made both to put the Terps ahead again.

Mallory finally broke through with a three at 6:31, giving Virginia its first lead of the second half at 70-69. Buljan answered with a putback after a Wagner miss, and Maryland's last lead came at 71-70. From there it was the Lewis show.

Lewis scored on a layup off a Mallory assist to retake the lead, then threw down a dunk after Buljan's free throw had tied it at 72. De Ridder added a layup for a 76-72 cushion. House kept Maryland alive with a three-point play, but Virginia's two best players kept going at the rim. De Ridder scored again, then Lewis scored twice more at the rim, and Virginia led 82-77 with just over two minutes left.

The decisive sequence came next. Grunloh blocked Wagner's layup attempt, De Ridder grabbed the rebound, and on the other end Lewis found De Ridder for a three with 1:33 to go. That made it 85-77 and capped a 15-6 Virginia run that started with Maryland in front. House made four free throws in the final two and a half minutes and Payne and Mills scored late layups, but Gertrude split two trips to the line in the final 44 seconds, and the clock did the rest.

The Numbers That Explain It

Virginia won this game in the paint. The Cavaliers scored 58 points inside to Maryland's 36, and their 20-of-26 shooting in the second half, a blistering 76.9 percent, is the kind of efficiency that can cover up almost anything. For the night, Virginia shot 62.3 percent from the floor and 4 of 10 from three. Maryland shot 42.1 percent and just 4 of 17 from deep, with Mills going 2 of 13 from the field.

What nearly cost Virginia the game was everything else. Maryland made 31 of 39 free throws, outscored the Cavaliers 24-15 off turnovers and grabbed 10 offensive rebounds for 17 second-chance points. Virginia's 17 turnovers included seven by Lewis, which shows how thin the line was between a star turn and a nightmare one. A team that had piled up double-digit steals in each of its first four games managed only five, while Maryland collected 10.

The bench split was lopsided too: Maryland's reserves scored 42 points, with House posting 17 on 9-of-10 free throws and McNair adding 15 in 18 minutes on 3-of-6 shooting from deep and 6-of-6 at the line. Virginia's bench scored 12. Mallory finished with 12 points, five rebounds and four assists, but both Mallory and Adekunle ended the night with five fouls.

What It Means

For Virginia, this was the first real road test of the Ryan Odom era's second act, and the Cavaliers passed it while playing nowhere near their best. Coming in, they had been averaging a school-record 93 points per game and had blown out Drexel, Northeastern, No. 12 Arkansas and Bucknell. The Bucknell rout on Tuesday and the statement win over Arkansas showed what this group looks like when it is comfortable. Friday showed what it looks like when it is not, and that might matter more come March. The concern is depth: the core four of Lewis, De Ridder, Grunloh and Mallory scored 75 of the 87 points. That is a great sign for the top of the rotation and a question mark for everyone else.

For Maryland, there is real stuff to build on. Payne was a load all night with 20 points on 6-of-10 shooting and 8-of-10 free throws, and the guard duo of House and McNair gave Williams instant offense off the bench. But the Terps are now 1-2 after a loss at Georgetown last weekend, and their perimeter shooting has to improve before a Players Era trip to Las Vegas later this month. Next up is Alcorn State at home on Monday, Nov. 16. Virginia returns home to face Old Dominion on Tuesday, Nov. 17.

The Takeaway

Good teams find ways to win on nights when the whistle, the shooting and their own ball security all go against them. Virginia trailed for roughly three quarters of this game, got outscored at the line by 14 points and still walked out of College Park with a four-point win, because Lewis kept attacking and De Ridder hit the shot that mattered.

Maryland showed it can punch with anyone. Virginia showed it can take the punch and win anyway.

Sources: Maryland Athletics official live stats; CBS Sports play-by-play and box score; Virginia Athletics; Maryland Athletics; Sports Illustrated. More men's college basketball coverage on Undrafted.

Photo: Maryland Athletics.