Men's Basketball Falls to No. 5 Maryland
11/28/1998 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Maryland went to the Puerto Rico Shootout not having been tested in its first five games. The fifth-ranked Terrapins left with three more easy wins and the championship trophy.
The third of the victories was an 87-52 destruction of Pittsburgh on Saturday night that left the Terrapins (7-0) with an average margin of victory of 37.1 points for the season.
In the Shootout they started with a 50-point win over American University of Puerto Rico, the Division II host school, and followed that with a 70-54 victory over No. 10 UCLA, but they had a 23-point lead in that one with 8 1/2 minutes to play.
Laron Profit, the tournament MVP, led Maryland with 23 points, while Steve Francis added 19.
"For all those people that said we hadn't played anybody," Francis said, leaving the end of the statement to be filled in. "We stepped up and played as hard as we could. We can play defense."
Pittsburgh (6-1) beat No. 13 Xavier and No. 4 Kentucky in its first two games, but the chance at knocking off three ranked teams in as many days was gone quickly against Maryland.
The Terrapins went on a 20-0 run to take a 30-7 lead with 10:23 left in the first half. They were perfect in the run making eight shots in as many possessions, while holding the Panthers 0-for-4 from the field with three turnovers.
Profit had a 3-pointer and two three-point plays in the run, but the Terrapins weren't done as they extended the lead to 46-17 at halftime, shooting 59 percent (20-of-34) while holding Pitt to 19 percent (5-of-26).
"We can turn it up and play defense a lot of different ways, halfcourt, fullcourt, man-to-man, there's a lot of things we can do," Profit said. "Sometimes when we get on one of those runs it can feel like we have nine guys out there."
Maryland's biggest lead was 87-41 with 2:18 left and Pittsburgh closed the game with an 11-0 run.
"We have a schedule as tough as anybody's in the nation and yet people wanted to give us heat over the first five games," Maryland coach Gary Williams said. "You don't have to say anything after you win. You just win."
Vonteego Cummings led the Panthers with 19 points, while Ricardo Greer added 16 points and 10 rebounds.
"They played great and we didn't," Pitt coach Ralph Willard said. "They are a very, very good team that plays good defense and has great athletes and they were a heck of a lot quicker than us. We have quickness and they were eight steps quicker than us tonight."
Maryland shot 63 percent for the game (37-for-59), while Pittsburgh finished at 23 percent (14-for-61).
Pittsburgh, a team beset by injuries over the past few seasons, was the story of the tournament as it knocked off Xavier 94-76 and then stunned Kentucky, the defending national champions, 68-56.
The Panthers had not beaten a ranked team since March 1997, a season when they beat three teams in the Top 25.
"We went through two wars and played good defense for two straight nights," Willard said. "I told the kids right after the game that those two wins as good as they were didn't help us or hurt us for tonight and what happened tonight won't hurt us down the road either."