Kevin Willard admits Maryland is at the point "where every game is really important"

Maryland will look to bounce back and pick up its first win of the new year when they welcome Michigan to the Xfinity Center on Thursday night. With a lack of any established postseason resume heading into the second-half of the season, head coach Kevin Willard admitted that the Terps are “at that point where every game is really important.”

As far as looking ahead to Selection Sunday, Willard took a more short-term approach with his answer.

“I’m just staying focused right now on Michigan. I mean…it’s a new team every year and right now just getting them focused on Michigan. That’s the only thing you can really do right now,” he said during Wednesday’s press conference.

Like Maryland, Michigan is coming off consecutive losses after watching a slim halftime lead evaporate against Minnesota in a two-point loss at home to start the year. Three days later, Michigan blew a ten-point lead to Penn State in an eventual 79-73 loss at the Palestra. Heading into Thursday 6-9 (1-3), Tennessee transfer Olivier Nkamhoua is one of four players averaging double-figures, while Willard pointed to leading scorer Dug McDaniel when evaluating the Wolverines.

“Michigan scores the ball extremely well. They shoot the basketball from four spots. Dug [McDaniel] is a dynamic player, both offensively and defensively. I think the biggest thing with them is how well they shoot the basketball.”

Aside from the lack of scoring from anyone not named Jahmir Young, Maryland’s perimeter shooting remains a glaring concern as the Terps enter Thursday shooting under 28% from deep.

“There’s nothing I can do about a constant narrative,” Willard said when asked about the team’s shooting struggles. KenPom, a metric Willard frequently pointed to in his first season, hasn’t been kind to the Terps either with the nation’s 168th-best adjusted offense efficiency.

“I’ve tried to stay away from KenPom just because our offensive numbers are so beautiful. Our defensive numbers are really good. So maybe I just look at the KenPom defensive numbers right now. I’m trying to be picky.”

Willard added that guard Jahari Long, who missed the Minnesota game, is ‘questionable’ against Michigan while Willard backtracked on potential changes to the starting five.

“Ever since we’ve got back from UCLA, we’ve unfortunately had two injuries and four guys sick. So, that’s part of the reason,” he added. “Maybe the tinkering is more or less the amount of practice time certain guys have been able to get because of illness.”

With Long’s status in question, Willard has turned to freshman Jahnathan Lamothe to fill the backcourt rotation.

“Jahnathan’s the typical freshman,” Willard added. “He’s stayed with a great attitude. He’s worked hard. He’s really been good in practice and he’s earned his minutes in practice.”

More from Willard on Michigan, freshmen and what it takes for a turnaround:

On cause for confidence and concern

“I like the way these guys are practicing. I like their attitude. They’ve been working hard and they’ve had a great attitude.”

On whether he’s had to temper expectations

“No.”

On whether there’s any frustration

“No.”

On where the belief in team steams from

“Just every day in practice, they’ve brought a great attitude and a great work ethic. We’ve struggled at times, but they’ve brought a great attitude and they continue to work great every day. So that’s where I get my belief from.”

On whether Maryland can replicate last year’s success after 1-3 Big Ten start

“I mean, I think our goal is to obviously start playing a little bit better. I thought we took a good step on the road the other day. I was really proud of the way our freshman played on the road, considering the fact they had, Jahnathan hadn’t played a lot of minutes. He went out there and did a great job. I thought that was Jamie Kaiser’s best game of the year. I think DeShawn [Harris-Smith] is starting to show really good improvements in the area that I need him to improve in. So, yeah, I have a lot of confidence in this team.”

On the different challenges Michigan presents this year vs. last

“They’re still posting up just as much…obviously, just not Hunter [Dickinson]. I’m going to mess up the young man’s name, so I’m not going to say his last name, but number 13 [Olivier Nkamhoua] has really changed where they didn’t post up so much at the four-spot last year. They’re posting much more at the four spot and I think they’re a little bit more pick and roll heavy than they were last year just because of not having Hunter and Dug being a little bit older. But I also think they shoot the basketball much more, much better. I mean, they’re only 13, 14 points away from really having a pretty good season. So they’ve played an unbelievably tough schedule. They score the basketball. They’ve had some tough losses.”

On Maryland’s defensive efforts

“I like the fact that we’re still the number one ranked defensive team in the Big Ten and we struggled to score. So we’ve played a lot of transition defense. So the fact that we haven’t been able to press, we haven’t been able to set up our defense as much as we probably would like to. The fact that we’ve continued to make it hard for teams to score, I think is something I’m really excited about. If we could ever start scoring on a consistent basis and you add both those together, that’d be really good for us.”

On Maryland’s freshmen development during conference play

“No, that could be my answer. To be honest with you, I mean, it was, we had three freshmen and a sophomore out there for six minutes and although the lead went down, they did a lot of good things out there. They made the right rotations, they made some good passes. We missed some shots. They ran everything the right way. Defensively, they had a couple breakdowns, but out of eight minutes, they had two breakdowns and gave [up] two threes. But for the most part, I was really happy at the way Jahnathan played. I thought Jamie Kaiser has played his best game he’s played all year by far. And again, Deshawn for his expectations, although he struggled a little bit offensively, he’s starting to make some really good strides that I see every day on film.”

On the freshmen battling against more experienced players in conference play

“I talked about this a little bit the other night, was it’s a little unfair for them because it’s not your typical freshman class going against a typical junior, sophomore or senior class. They’re going up against sometimes fifth-year, sometimes sixth-year guys and I think they are progressing. I’m as excited about those three freshmen as I was when they first came. They have a great attitude. They’re practicing hard. They’re getting better, but they’re just going through it a little bit. I’m okay with them going through it because they come back with practice with a great attitude. They watch film, they’re trying to learn and that’s all I can ask for them.”

On freshmen dominance across college basketball

“I think we’re down to 15 kids, 15 freshmen across that are in double digits in the country. I think it’s down to 15. It was 16 the other night and I think one of them had a bad night. So 15 total freshmen are averaging double figures. So again, it’s a little bit different this year…even next year, it’s probably gonna be a little bit difficult for some guys, but once that resets then I think everyone can reset their expectations on freshmen.”

On whether roster changes year-over-year make it tougher to scout teams

“No, I mean, no, they’ve played 15 games. So we’ve watched the last five. So when you prepare for them, you kind of just go off the way this team, the way they’re playing now. So they’re playing much differently than they did last year, obviously without Hunter. So you kind of watch their last five games and then you kind of prepare that way. So it doesn’t really matter who’s on their roster. It’s the great thing about nowadays, you get so much film on teams that you can watch the film and prepare for how they’re and really how they’re playing now compared to how they were playing maybe ten games ago, because everyone kind of changes a little bit as the season progresses.”

Kevin Willard admits Maryland is at the point “where every game is really important”

Ahmed Ghafir