Maryland’s Ivan Bender hung on the rim as long as he could in the final seconds of last Friday’s game against Saint Francis of Pa., finishing off a two-handed dunk in transition that sent the crowd at Xfinity Center into frenzy. Few of them likely had any idea of how long the freshman forward had been waiting for a moment like this. Over the past 22 months, he’s endured two anterior cruciate ligament injuries. He’s suspended by the NCAA. He’s been thrust into a new culture away from his home in Bosnia, forced to deal with a steep learning curve on and off the court in College Park.
After two long years, Ivan Bender gets in the game for Maryland
