After Maryland left the ACC for the Big Ten, like a lot of ACC fans probably, we stopped paying much attention to the Terps. We did follow the Mark Turgeon saga as Terp fans turned on their coach, and were
intrigued by the Kevin Willard saga, as the Terps coach, in a savagely ironic twist, appeared to turn on the fans, but other than that?
Not very much really .
Maryland has kind of disappeared from the basketball radar. They haven’t done particularly well in the Big Ten really. Turgeon got them to the Sweet 16 once and tied for 1st during the first Covid year.
Willard was only there for three seasons and got to the Round of 32 once, whiffed in 2022-23 finishing 16-17 and won 27 games last season and got to the Sweet 16…but no one cared.
He had checked out and everyone knew he was leaving and Terp fans hated him for it.
Now Buzz Williams is in charge and like Turgeon, came to College Park from A&M in College Station, Texas.
Williams brought Pharrel Payne with him and the 6-9 senior has been having an excellent season so far.
Well, it’s too early to know for sure, but the rest of his season is in question after Maryland’s win over Marquette.
Why?
Because of this play: Payne went in for a powerful dunk and got a bit exuberant. And when he came down, well, his body went in one direction and his right leg went in another, and it wasn’t a direction it was designed for.
If you have a low tolerance for that sort of thing, you might want to give the link a miss.
He was taken to the hospital but there’s no further word yet on his condition. You hate to see anyone injured, but much less like this, so hopefully he’ll be okay. All best wishes for a speedy recovery.
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