COLLEGE PARK |Â Maryland saw its fading NCAA tournament hopes take another blow Sunday, as the sixth-ranked Michigan State Spartans rallied from a 13-point halftime deficit to roar past the Terrapins 74-68.
Joshua Langford scored 19 points to lead a second-half surge that led the Spartans to their fourth straight victory.
Michigan State (20-3, 8-2 Big Ten) outscored the Terrapins 20-4 in the second half’s opening 5 1/2 minutes and held on.
Michigan State came into the game reeling from revelations on how the school has handled — or mishandled — allegations of sexual misconduct since the university’s former sports doctor Larry Nassar was charged with assaulting scores of girls and young women gymnasts for years.
“It’s been crazy,” Michigan State guard Cassius Winston said. “We keep it tight in here. This is really a family. We’ve got coach Izzo’s back, he has ours. Out there, that was just us proving it.”
Winston scored 13 and Jaren Jackson Jr. added 12 for the Spartans, who shot 53 percent after halftime and finished with a 46-29 rebounding advantage.
After Maryland closed to 63-61 with 1:43 left, Langford grabbed the rebound of a miss by teammate Miles Bridges, and Winston subsequently made two free throws to all but seal the win.
Kevin Huerter led Maryland with 17 points, and Anthony Cowan Jr. and Darryl Morsell each had 12. The Terrapins (15-8, 4-6) have lost five of seven, a skid that began with a 91-61 defeat at Michigan State on Jan. 4.
“We’re getting better and I’m having fun coaching them,” Maryland coach Mark Turgeon insisted. “We’ve practiced really well. I want to continue to do that. See where it leads us.”
Maryland seemed upset-bound until the start of the second half, when the Spartans got a pair of 3-pointers from Jackson and two baskets from Langford in an 11-2 spurt that made it 39-35.
After Bruno Fernando scored in the lane for Maryland, Michigan State rattled off nine straight points to go on top for the first time.
In the first half, the Spartans went 9 for 33 from the floor, including 1 for 10 from beyond the arc.
Maryland delighted the sellout crowd of 17,950 by bolting in front 8-0, getting two 3-pointers from Dion Wiley and an alley-oop dunk by Morsell. After missing eight of their first nine shots, the Spartans closed to 18-16 before Michal Cekovsky made three baskets in a 10-2 run that gave the Terps their first double-digit lead.
As it turned out, that wasn’t a problem for Izzo and his squad.
“A lot of things could have went wrong, but we found a way to stick together and fight through that,” Winston said.
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