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Maryland dances past Hawaii, into Sweet 16

By Sean Kramer, The Sports Xchange

SPOKANE, Wash. -- Melo Trimble doesn't consider himself the celebrating type ... or the dancing type. That changed Sunday night in Maryland's 73-60 win over Hawaii in the Second Round of the NCAA Tournament, punching the Terrapins' first ticket to the Sweet 16 since 2003.

Battling with Hawaii for the better part of 30 minutes and not being able to pull away, Robert Carter barreled down the lane, drew the block and completed the and-one play to put Maryland up 52-41 with 8:25 left in the game.

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This, in the midst of a 14-0 run to stiff-arm the No. 13-seeded underdog from any hopes of an upset, was too big of a moment not to celebrate.

Trimble high-stepped in celebrating as he mobbed his teammate on the baseline after the foul call.

"Once Rob got that and one I felt like we had the game and everyone else on the bench was excited, so I just said, why not, why not just show my true character and have fun," Trimble said.

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"I might have to give him some pointers on how to dance, too," teammate Rasheed Sulaimon said. "That was atrocious to watch."

Trimble got his swagger back, draining Maryland's first trey of the game a minute earlier after 15 straight misses, five of them from the stellar sophomore.

"It was frustrating. I air balled one. I'm always due for one," Trimble said. "I'm a confident player and my teammates believe in me, they want me to keep shooting. I'm pretty sure Coach Turgeon wants me to keep shooting too, but shoot good shots."

Shutting down Big West Player of the Year Stefan Jankovic won the game for Maryland, holding the versatile big man to 14 points on 17 shot attempts, mostly when guarded by Diamond Stone and Carter.

Mike Thomas led Hawaii with 19 points in the contest.

"I told the guys before the tournament started, I said, we're going to have a game where we can't make a shot, and we got to defend," Maryland coach Mark Turgeon said. "And we did that tonight. We defended, and we finally rebounded a little bit better during that stretch when we took the lead."

Hawaii's storybook road trip, spanning three weeks and three milestones, comes to an end with a program-high 28 wins and the programs first ever NCAA Tournament win, over Cal on Friday.

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The Warriors collected the regular season and tournament crowns in the Big West in the weeks prior.

"They should be celebrated, and I know Hawaii and -- that's what I told our guys, the state of Hawaii is very proud of them," Hawaii coach Eran Ganot said. "Because at the end of the day their job is to influence people in a positive way, and they certainly did that. Kids look up to in the community over there as morale's high because of them, because of the effort they put in, and the performance and the manner in which they performed."

NOTES: The two schools met for only the third time ever, and the first time since 1996. Maryland won the first two meetings ... Two of the best defensive teams in the country met, with both coming in ranked in the Top 45 in the NCAA in Ken Pomeroy's adjusted defense efficiency metric. Hawaii was the higher rated team at No. 29 in the country ... Hawaii is on its third week in a row on the road, dating back to the final week of the regular season on March 1 ... The Rainbow Warriors hit a program-high in wins at 28 with its first ever NCAA Tournament win over California on Friday afternoon.

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