The soreness was gone, three days after Maryland senior forward Jon Graham (Calvert Hall) gave up about six inches and more than 70 pounds to Purdue freshman center Isaac Haas in his matchup Saturday in West Lafayette, Ind.
The satisfaction remained for the job Graham did after both sophomore Damonte Dodd and freshman Michal Cekovsky got into foul trouble in a 69-60 victory for the No. 14 Terps.
"It was a good challenge for me," Graham said Tuesday. "Not too many guys like him are walking around these days ... He was as strong as advertised. He does a good job of sealing in the post, swimming around in the post and burying you. My job was not to get buried by him."
Haas finished with six points, seven rebounds and two blocks, though his effectiveness was reduced significantly when he picked up his third and fourth personals 14 seconds apart, the fourth coming with 11:46 left in the game. Haas' backup, 7-foot, 260-pound junior A.J. Hammons, picked up his fourth personal less than a minute later.
Asked what he was able to do in helping contain Haas, eventually helping get Haas into foul trouble himself, Graham said: "A big like that, he wants to get as close to the rim as he can. My job was doing the best I could getting him pushed off the block a little, kind of get him where he's not as comfortable. My measure of attack was getting him as far from the basket as possible."
Graham only had one rebound in the 21 minutes he played; part of that was pushing Haas and Hammons away from the basket to allow some of his Maryland teammates, such as junior forward Jake Layman (14 points, eight rebounds) and senior forward Evan Smotrycz (five rebounds) to control the boards.
It certainly wasn't easy.
While he had played against Hammons while at Penn State earlier in his career, and had faced his share of 7-footers, Graham said Haas was a "once in a blue moon type of player" in terms of sheer size. When asked if Haas was the biggest player he had ever seen close-up on a basketball court, Graham smiled.
"Yeah, by far I think," Graham said.