Maryland freshmen Melo Trimble and Jared Nickens no wallflowers at their first Big Dance

COLUMBUS, OHIO — Ever since they kept Maryland competitive against Virginia in early December despite the absence of injured star Dez Wells, Mark Turgeon's freshmen have saved the Terps on numerous occasions.

Friday night, two of the freshmen helped fourth-seeded Maryland beat No. 13 seed Valparaiso, 65-62, in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

Point guard Melo Trimble overcame a relatively slow start to record his second double double, finishing with nine of his 14 points in the second half to go along with 10 rebounds.

It is almost expected now from Trimble, who was the first freshman point guard to be named to the All-Big Ten first team since Indiana's Eric Gordon in 2008.

What Jared Nickens did wasn't a total surprise, but four first-half 3-pointers in his 14-point performance gave the Terps a huge lift — gave and the 6-foot-7 wing a boost after coming into his first NCAA tournament on a bit of a cold streak.

Freshman shooting guard Dion Wiley also hit his only attempt, a 3-pointer in the second half.

The contribution of the freshmen came on a night when junior forward Jake Layman finished with more fouls (five) than points (four) and senior guard Richaud Pack, also making his NCAA tournament debut, failed to score.

"I think we had confidence from our upperclassmen going into the game and basically we just played really loose," Trimble said. "We worried about the outcome, but we didn't worry about anything else and just played basketball."

Said Nickens: "We're a deep team regardless of foul trouble, and coach Turgeon trusts a lot of us to step up and play well, and we did that today."

Nickens' first-half performance was reminiscent of his second-half performance against Iowa State, when he scored the majority of his 15 points in that game. Nickens had come into Friday having missed 13 of his previous 17 shots, including 11 of 14 3-pointers.

Nickens said after Friday's game that he spent the past few days taking more shots than he could count in the gym before and after practice with assistant coach Cliff Warren. Nickens then went out and buried his first 3-pointer.

"It helped a lot getting my rhythm back," said Nickens, whose four 3-pointers were one shy of matching the school record for an NCAA tournament game. "I was feeling good today. I had a good rhythm. Guys did a good job of finding me."

Trimble played a role in doing that, adding three assists.

Trimble had said Thursday that he didn't think he would be nervous for his first NCAA tournament game, but he acknowledged afterward that he was at the start.

"This game right here just got the nervousness out of me," Trimble said. "Now I'm ready to keep playing basketball."

Though Wiley's contribution wasn't as significant, hitting his only shot in his NCAA tournament debut also helped a player who has struggled to earn consistent minutes playing behind seniors Wells and Pack.

"I never really lost confidence in my shot. It was like confidence in myself playing, because my minutes had dropped." Wiley said. "Playing the minutes tonight that I normally get and hitting that shot boost my confidence even more."

The Terps will certainly need their freshmen — and their bench — come Sunday when they play West Virginia, which used 12 players in the first half of its 68-62 win over No. 12 seed Buffalo earlier Friday.

"The great thing is that we played nine guys over 10 minutes, which is great," Turgeon said. "Got some really good experience for a lot of guys to get out there. We're at our best when we're deep."

don.markus@baltsun.com
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