Terps fend off furious Providence comeback, win Paradise Jam

Guard Dez Wells attempts a layup in the Terps’ 78-77 loss to UConn in the season opener at the Barclays Center on Nov. 8, 2013.

ST. THOMAS, Virgin Islands — The Terrapins men’s basketball team boarded a plane headed for the Virgin Islands on Wednesday as a shaken group. While the Terps didn’t splinter or completely lose confidence after starting the season 1-2, coach Mark Turgeon said unexpected struggles left his team a bit dismayed before its trip to the Caribbean.

But all that disappointment and uncertainty seemed a distant memory when guards Dez Wells and Nick Faust and forward Evan Smotrycz posed for pictures last night on the court at the University of the Virgin Islands gym wearing black hats emblazoned with “2013 Paradise Jam champions” that had small pieces of the net from the gym’s hoops tucked in them.

Moments before the photo opportunity, the Terps fended off Providence’s furious second-half comeback attempt to earn a 56-52 victory and cap a string of three wins in four days for the Terps that ended with a Paradise Jam championship.

The Terps’ concerns might not be fully alleviated after a trio of victories over unranked opponents, but nevertheless, a team that left College Park reeling returns with something to build on.

“I didn’t feel good about us a week ago Sunday,” Turgeon said. “I knew we were going to play better, but I didn’t know if we could do this. So this is pretty big for us.”

Wells was named Paradise Jam MVP after he scored nine of 13 points against Providence in the second half to help the Terps outlast the previously unbeaten Friars. Smotrycz was the other Terp on the all-tournament first team, and he finished with 13 points and 11 boards in the final.

As a whole, though, Turgeon’s team used the same formula during the tournament to find success. They played stifling defense in each game and turned in balanced efforts on the offensive end.

On Monday, those two factors helped the Terps build a 19-point lead and then hang on despite a 20-4 Friars run that lasted much of the second half.

Offensively, Wells and Smotrycz led the team with 13 points apiece, but all eight Terps who played had at least one field goal.

But defense, the Terps said, was the game’s deciding factor. The team held the Friars to 27.1 percent shooting from the field and 10 points in the paint.

“Attention to detail is the biggest thing,” Wells said. “As you can see, we really honed in on all those things and it was a good defensive game. We only had 56. It was all defense.”

In the first half, the Terps were clicking.

Wells’ explosiveness on the break got the Terps out to a 6-0 lead, as he followed his coast-to-coast dunk with a behind-the-back move and layup in transition.

The Terps’ post players picked up the slack when Wells was sent to the bench with foul trouble, as Smotrycz, forward Charles Mitchell and center Shaquille Cleare all posted seven points in the first half. The trio also helped control the glass in the initial minutes, and the Terps ended the half with a 26-19 rebounding edge.

Providence, meanwhile, shot 7-of-30 from the field in the first half, and the Terps maintained a high level of defensive play out of the locker room.

The Friars didn’t score for the first 4:41 of the second half. But then the Terps got cold, and they allowed Providence to claw back into the game.

“Our guys were really tired,” Turgeon said. “We missed a lot of shots we normally make. But we gutted it out.”

Providence guard Bryce Cotton’s hot shooting helped the Friars trim the Terps lead to two points with less than two minutes to play. But then Wells, much like he did to start the game, provided the Terps a place to turn for production. He hit a floater in the lane and then a couple of free throws to preserve a slim lead.

“I just knew I had to make something happen,” Wells said. “I had to make something happen for my team to stop the bleeding, stop the momentum.”

After Wells’ scores, the Terps newly steady defense responded with a stop, and the team eventually held off the Friars.

About a week after the Terps left Comcast Center with a discouraging loss to Oregon State and a troubling 1-2 record, they return to College Park today with a championship trophy. And while posing for pictures, Wells, Smotrycz and Faust had a real reason to smile.

“I love it, I love winning,” Smotrycz said after the game last night, chuckling with his hat turned sideways on his head. “I love winning things.”