SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- For a few scary minutes, Maryland wondered if it was doomed to a third straight year of one-game-and-out of the NCAA Tournament.

The

Maryland's Mike Mardesich rips a rebound away from Utah State's Kevin Rice, left, and Brandon Birch. (AP)

Terps could hardly believe what was happening to them Thursday. So much bigger, so much stronger, and just as quick as Utah State, the Terps opened with a 14-3 spurt on the muscle play of Obinna Ekezie and Rodney Elliott. Then they watched it evaporate.

SUDDENLY, THE AGGIES ran wild, pumping in 13 straight points on Marcus Saxon's outside shooting and taking a 20-18 lead midway through the half. Could history repeat itself again, sending the Terps home once more after the first round? They called timeout and decided, no, it wouldn't.

"We got together in the huddle and said, 'Look, we can't let this happen again. We've got to pick it up big time if we want to win,"' said guard Sarunas Jasikevicius.

And the Lithuanian showed his teammates the way, floating in three 3-pointers to spark Maryland to a 44-36 lead at halftime that wasn't threatened the rest of the game as the Terps beat Utah State 82-68 in the West Regional.

Ekezie, a 6-foot-10, 256-pounder from Nigeria, started the game with a two-handed dunk and finished with 17 points and seven rebounds. Elliott, leaner at 6-8 but strong and quick, posted 21 points and 11 rebounds.

"Their tallest player was, like, 6-8, so we just kept pounding the ball inside and they couldn't stop us," said Ekezie, who bulled around the basket like Shaquille O'Neal. "We were a little nervous. I think you saw that in our play sometimes. But we've got this first win and now we can go."

JASIKEVICIUS SCORED 16 POINTS AND had seven assists for Maryland, and Laron Profit added 12 points and six assists.

Maryland (20-10) ruled the boards with a 47-27 advantage, and the smaller Aggies (25-8) had to rely almost entirely on Saxon. That worked pretty well in the first half, when Saxon scored 18 points. But the strategy failed in the second half when Maryland made adjustments on defense to limit him to seven points and a total of 25.

"At this level, the NCAA Tournament, one guy isn't going to beat you by himself too often," Maryland coach Gary Williams said.

"Late in the second half, I kind of got worn down," Saxon said. "They kept a guy on me all the time, trying to get the ball out of my hands.

"They got us down early, and we fought back once, but it wasn't enough. It was just bad defense on (Jasikevicius). We worked so hard to come back and we expended a lot of energy. We tried to do it again but we couldn't find a way to get over the hump."

UTAH STATE, WHICH SHOT ONLY 32 PERCENT from the field in the second half and 39 percent for the game, got 14 points from Kevin Rice and 12 from Donnie Johnson.

"They bothered us with their small lineup in the first half, but we countered it with four guards of our own," Williams said. "We really couldn't get matched up until we did the same."

Maryland next plays fifth seed Illinois, which defeated No. 12 South Alabama 64-51.

"We've got to be more consistent for 40 minutes," Jasikevicius said. "We weren't today, but this is the first round, and we played a lower seed. Now we're going to play better teams."

"We struggled to match their strength and size," Utah State coach Larry Eustachy said. "When we played right, we had the lead. When we got away from what we were supposed to be doing, we struggled."