Less than a month ago, Maryland men’s basketball made the drive up to Piscataway on the heels of a two-game win streak in Big Ten play. But a Rutgers team that had lost seven straight heading into the contest took down the Terps by 11 points.
On Sunday, Maryland couldn’t exorcise its Scarlet Knights demons. Despite a valiant comeback effort, the Terps fell at Xfinity Center, 69-65, dropping to 4-14 in conference play.
Here are three takeaways from the game.
First half agony…
Heading into Sunday’s contest, Rutgers was
tied for the second-fewest wins in the Big Ten. So for as good as it played defensively, there should exist no world in which Maryland turns the ball over 14 times in the opening half.
The Terps were absolutely complicit in their own demise — at least for the first 20 minutes.
The trouble began right away — Maryland started 0-of-5 from the field, with most of its attempts coming from within 10 feet of the cup. Their layups admittedly weren’t getting friendly bounces, but the Terps also weren’t doing much to scheme up open looks.
Maryland is the fourth-worst 3-point shooting team in the conference, but its poor shot selection from beyond the arc was second to none. Two of the Terps’ first three treys came courtesy of Solomon Washington and Collin Metcalf — the former is a 24.2% shooter from deep, and the latter has not made one in college.
Maryland made just one of its 14 3-point attempts in the first half, failing to stretch the court and force the hand of Rutgers’ perimeter defense. On multiple possessions, the Terps couldn’t even get a shot off. They had a shot clock violation and numerous offensive infractions on desperate screens to free ball handlers.
But Rutgers deserves its credit, too — it ran a hounding on-ball defense. Jamichael Davis stripped Diggy Coit for a steal and score, and the Scarlet Knights turned Coit over again on a full-court press double team under his own basket.
Sometimes, the Terps couldn’t even feed the ball into their post players. Guillermo Del Pino added to the giveaway total on a lazily lofted pass into Elijah Saunders, whose whole frontside was already completely draped by a Scarlet Knight.
“Our turnover rate was a major issue in the first half,“ head coach Buzz Williams said. ”Still wasn’t great in the second half, I think it speaks to [Rutgers] knows what we’re trying to do.“
…Turned into second half hope…
Maryland was down 39-20 at the half. It jogged out of the tunnel groggily as the intermission clock expired — Rutgers had already been warming up for minutes. It looked like the Terps would roll over and disappear into the confines of the Xfinity Center quietly.
Instead, Maryland gave Rutgers a huge dose of its own medicine. So what suddenly worked?
“The players led most of [halftime],” Williams said. “Everything they were saying was spot on…we kind of changed tactically what we were doing.”
A confident, bordering on carefree flow to the Terps’ offense was paramount to their success. In the first half, Maryland often hesitated or refused to pull the trigger on the most wide open looks it would get all possession.
But four of the team’s first five triples found netting, and most of them were heavily contested. Elijah Saunders and Andre Mills helped spring Maryland closer with their makes, and the team was already within 10 points not even five minutes into the half.
What was perhaps most impressive about the stretch was the fact that Rutgers was held to just two points in an over-eight minute span. Multiple forced turnovers and three combined Washington and Metcalf rejections paved the way for some easy transition buckets. Metcalf’s fast break jam with 12:39 left put the Terps up for the first time since the 14:27 mark of the opening half.
It also can’t be overstated how crucial Del Pino has been for Williams as of recent. Time and again, he was seen frantically waving his arms around on offense, directing traffic and operating as a steadying distributor. He played just eight minutes in the first half, but registered all but one minute in the second.
“We want to play the guys that give us the best chance to win,” Williams said. “And if you’re down 19 at half, regardless of what’s happening, who can help us on both sides by playing really hard, playing to the scouting report and executing along those lines?”
But despite the momentum being entirely with Maryland, it still — somehow — found a way to lose.
…But repeated mistakes cost Maryland again.
There appears to be just one Terp who relishes having the ball in his hands in close late-game situations: Diggy Coit. Against Nebraska on Wednesday, he entered the game with 10 minutes left when things were tied. But he shot the team out of contention, and Maryland fell by 13.
Sometimes, his heroics have paid off. On Feb. 8 against Minnesota, he nailed an isolation stepback three in the final seconds to give the Terps their second Big Ten win. He’s also had outings of 43 and 41 points, putting him in the annals of Maryland greats.
But he can’t be the only option.
With under two minutes to play, Coit squared up his defender and took three consecutive shots. Just one went in. The final miss all but sealed the game with 28 seconds left. On one of the possessions, the ball moved from Saunders to Del Pino, who played ping pong with Coit for 10 seconds while the undersized guard tried to free himself for an open look.
The pattern remains: ball movement eludes the team as the clock winds down.
Even with Andre Mills’ recent ascension, he hasn’t seen his touch volume increase in crunch time. When he did get an opportunity, though, he plowed to the rim in an uncontrolled fury. The shot barely even hit the rim.
Some of the pitfalls may be philosophy based. But some can certainly be attributed to individual execution. Given that Maryland may not have a single All-Big Ten selection on its roster, it’s curious to see such a stagnant, NBA-like approach, where a single player is featured frequently in clutch moments regardless of success.
“We were running out of gas with that group that started, and then there was a lull, and I’m not blaming it on anybody, I’m blaming it on us,” Williams said.
