Maryland men’s basketball gave eighth-ranked Purdue a scare at Mackey Arena on Sunday afternoon before falling, 83-78, in their first true road game of the season. Derik Queen shined once again with a game-high 26 points and 12 rebounds, notching his fifth-career double-double, but Purdue's stretches in the second half proved too much for Maryland as the Boilermakers shot over 50% from both the field and three to close out the game.
“I just saw Braden Smith's middle pick-and-roll killed us,” head coach Kevin Willard said as Smith finished with a team-high 24 points and five made threes. “We tried to make some adjustments but when you have a lot of new guys and you're trying to make an adjustments with six minutes to go in the game and you got some lineups out there and without [Julian Reese] in there, you know, we weren't able to adjust. And I thought that really hurt us.”
Reese finished with five points and seven rebounds in 23 minutes, the fourth game he's been held under ten points this season, but his absence for the final 6:26 was felt after the senior fouled out for the first time this season. Tafara Gapare would fill that void after playing 15 minutes, while Jordan Geronimo played one minute in his first game back since Nov. 15, but Willard pointed to execution in the second half as Maryland adjusted to the road atmosphere.
“I think that's the disappointing part, was our halfcourt defense in the first half was really good. Our transition defense in the second half was – the crowd got into it, we got a little bit rattled, and we did some things. And again, that's part of, this is our first road game. It reminded me of some of the things we did against Marquette.”
Maryland fell to 8-2 (1-1) following the loss and will look to bounce back with a pair of games next week, highlighted by a neutral site matchup vs. Syracuse, but Willard left Mackey Arena bullish on his team’s potential heading into the rest of the 2024-25 season.
“I'm excited about this team. I mean, like I said, like the first time we played in front of a packed Xfinity Center, we did some things I'd never seen. So now, on the road in this conference, this is what it's like every game. So it's one of the best atmospheres. We'll go back, watch film, we'll learn from this. But I'm proud of the way our guys went out there and battled for 40 minutes.”
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