After getting back to .500 in Big Ten play following a three-point win vs. Nebraska on Sunday, Maryland men’s basketball hits the road for consecutive road games with 17th-ranked Illinois up next on Thursday night. And with Maryland still searching for its first true road win of the season, the message from head coach Kevin Willard to his team has been centered around the tightened margin of error outside of College Park.
“I think the biggest thing for us, and we did a little bit better job at against Northwestern. I think for us, you know, we've had leads late in the second half – we're up five against Purdue at Purdue, we had a lead at Washington, we had a lead at Oregon late in the game – is we've had some bad offensive possessions in all those games,” Willard said on 105.7. “We need to have better offensive sequences because our defense has been good enough to win games. But we've done some things offensively that really hurt us on the road that we can get away with at home because of our crowds and playing at home. But on the road, we just got to execute a little bit better offensively towards the end of the games.”
Illinois proved to be Maryland’s lone ranked win last season, but Terrence Shannon Jr. is off to the NBA and the Illini have proven one of the top scoring teams in the country, sitting fifth nationally in points (86.8) while averaging over ten made threes per game.
Coming off a two-point loss at Michigan State, who climbed to eighth in Monday’s updated AP poll, Maryland will have its hands full before heading to Bloomington on Sunday for the lone matchup against Indiana this season.
“I think the biggest thing is if you look at their three-point disparity,” Willard said of the Illini. “I mean, they've taken 100 more threes in conference play than their opponents. They've made 30 more threes. They're a team that has scored 109 at Oregon, they put up 94 at Indiana. They're a team that when they're shooting the basketball at a high level, they're almost impossible to beat because they defend the three so well. So the biggest thing for us is we're going to have to try to defend that three-point line as best as possible because they really live and die by it.”
While the portal trio have been able to lead the backcourt through the highs and lows of the first portion of Big Ten play, Julian Reese has been able to anchor the frontcourt through January with a double-double against UCLA before posting 23 points vs. Northwestern, while shooting 13-of-14 from the free-throw line. But arguably the bigger storyline has been breaking Derik Queen out of a slump after finishing with a season-low three points vs. Nebraska, the fourth time in January he’s been held under ten points.
“I think now that and Derik's getting used to this in the fact that now he's on everyone's Scout report, and now that we've gotten into league play, and every night you're going against he went up against two fifth-year seniors the other night, and just getting used to the physicality. I think that's the biggest thing that he's getting used to, is the fact that every night now, he's going up against more than likely a fifth-year senior or a senior at his position, and they're looking at him as this hot freshman who's on the draft boards and they're looking to go at him and prove to everybody that look at me. So he's just got to understand and realize a little bit that he's got a target on his back and he has to go into every game ready for that.”
On what led to Nebraska’s late comeback effort in Maryland’s 69-66 win on Sunday
“It’s something interesting that when you go through conference play, and now in the new era of kind of having a new team every year, just getting guys understand that certain teams aren't going to give you very many possessions and making sure that we value possessions towards the end of the game. Teams like Northwestern, Nebraska really kind of grind you out on the defensive end, will hold the ball for 25, 26 seconds. And really, we only had five possessions in the last five minutes of the game and we didn't take good shots. So it was a matter of, you know, we need to get better shots. Even though we're up nine, we need to value those possessions late in the game.”
On Jordan Geronimo becoming a spark off the bench vs. Nebraska
“I think that's the good thing about, you know, having some older guys and Jordan is one of those mature young men that kind of understands, you know, he missed a big three weeks of the season and other guys stepped up. And now that we get in the conference play, everyone's got to be ready. We’ve been trying to balance out playing Julian Reece and Derik Queen and trying to get someone in there with those guys at times that can shoot the basketball a little bit better. But Jordan's always been ready. Just felt like we need some defensive intensity in the Nebraska game. I can always count on Jordan to come in and give us great energy.”
On Julian Reese’s improved free-throw shooting
“I think going into the season, I think Julian kind of understood that if he shot somewhere in the 70% range or even a little bit above, he would have averaged four more points per game last year. And four points doesn't seem like a lot, but when you're averaging four more and you're averaging 16 points a game and you could have been averaging 20, that changes your stats and your direction of your career dramatically. So he went into the offseason last year and really worked on his form and his release. And he kind of understood that it was a weakness of his, and if he made it a strength, it could really not only help us, but really help him in his future.”
How closely Willard follows KenPom, other analytics
“I got it right here in front of me so I can tell you where we are. We're 23rd in the KenPom. we're 24th in the NET. I mean, I think you do follow it. The great thing about this conference, as hard as it is to win on the road, it gives you great opportunities. And we still have, we still have six more road games, we got seven more home games so we still have a lot of opportunities out there to kind of move the needle in the right direction and keep on going and that's what this time here is all about.”
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