Maryland men’s basketball wrapped up a winless West Coast swing, though in different fashion in game two compared to game one as the Terps jumped out to an early lead. But after the Ducks opened the second half on a 16-3 run including 14 unanswered points, head coach Kevin Willard is reevaluating his rotations coming out of halftime.
“I think that going forward, I’m looking at that starting lineup and I’m starting – they really start games really well. And what I’m kind of noticing is when we come out at halftime, that group is really struggling,” Willard told Chris Knoche postgame. "And I think the bench has really been good. I have a lot of confidence in those guys and I think going out of the second half, we just need a little more energy to kind of continue what we do to start the game. The starts of second halves have been absolutely brutal and we just got to do a better job on those.”
Despite trailing for the final 2:57 of regulation, Maryland remained within reach throughout the game but it was a key offensive rebound by Nate Bittle with 91 seconds left that dampened Maryland's comeback efforts. And it's part of the problem that Willard is now looking to fix.
“We have to come up with rebounds late in the games. It’s two games in a row, especially on the road. You’re not going to get a foul call. You’re not going to get a push in the back. We’ve got to come up – we got them to take two bad shots and you have to give them credit. They got two huge offensive rebounds. That was really the difference in the game.”
Maryland will look to avoid a three-game losing streak when they host UCLA next Friday, Jan. 10 for an 8 PM tipoff.
“I feel like we’ve gotten our rhythm back offensively. I thought we really struggled against Washington and I thought [Sunday], our pace was much better. Again, early on, we had 11 assists, four turnovers in the first half. Give them credit for the second half. They went to a little bit of a matchup zone and got us standing a little bit. I thought Rodney [Rice] got his rhythm back and Derik [Queen] played much more aggressive which I like. I thought offensively we got some good rhythm. We have to just get back, spend three days of good practice back in College Park and get our defense back to where it needs to be.”
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