Maryland will look to get back on track when they take on Villanova on Friday night, and they’ll do so against a familiar face.
Hakim Hart made the offseason transfer back home, joining Villanova as Kyle Neptune looks to reload third season with the program. Hart isn’t off to a blazing start for the ‘Cats though, averaging just 4.7 points in 17.7 minutes through the first three games. While Nova will look to tap into maximizing the former Terp on Friday, Maryland head coach Kevin Willard admitted he was “not very” excited to square off against a familiar face.
“I wish I still had Hakim. I’m happy for Hakim. I’m happy he’s playing at home, great family, but I mean, Hakim’s a very, very good player, so I’m not looking forward to playing Hakim, no,” Willard said during Thursday’s press conference.
“Hak was, if you look at the usage he had on the team, he was the second-highest usage player behind Jahmir. Hak was an extremely, he’s not a flashy player. He’s not a guy that’s gonna dunk on somebody. He’s not somebody that’s gonna, he’s not a 36 and 20 guy, but he’s a guy that consistently every night is a heck of a player, someone you can depend on, and that’s what he was for me last year.”
As for Maryland, they’ll look to get back to .500 after a strong week of practice led by Donta Scott, who will return to play in Philadelphia for the first time in his college career.
“I definitely think we’ll get better shooting the basketball. A lot of our missed shots have come from guys that are now either didn’t play that much last year, freshman coming in playing or really guys just trying to figure out their role. I don’t think we are a terrific shooting team, but I don’t think we’re as bad as we have shown. And I think we’ll get better as we can get into a rhythm and get into a much better flow offensively from a standpoint of substitution patterns., game minutes. A lot of guys out there now playing game minutes that didn’t play last year, getting shots that they didn’t. I do feel we’ll get better.”
More from Willard heading into Friday night’s matchup:
On the struggle to get players comfortable within their new roles
“I get it. I hate excuses, but you know, the schedule was not, it did not help us in the first week of the season considering the fact that when you have so many new guys and so many guys with transfers, you’d like to have three or four home games before you play a game, like kind of like what we did last year. Constructing a schedule is really probably one of the most important things you can do in college basketball. I would have been fine going and playing Davidson on a one-off or Clemson on a one-off, but to have three games in six days with no practice, it’s just not a good thing for your team to grow and get better. So we’ve had three good days of practice. We obviously have another game on the road and then when we get back, I’m looking at that stretch to kind of get us into a rhythm a little bit. It was just hard to get into a rhythm with so many new guys, plus with the injuries that we had for the first month of the season. It was a lot of my fault with guys getting shots that probably shouldn’t have been out there together. We had some combinations that we hadn’t practiced with, so now all of a sudden guys are out there getting shots that they probably weren’t used to getting in practice because of course we haven’t practiced it. That’s a long answer for again, yeah, I think we’ll be a better shooting team.”
On the level of concern through the first three games
“Yeah, I mean, I’m not worried about this team. I mean, I know everybody else is…I knew we wouldn’t be playing well at the game this season. I just, from a standpoint of watching practice, the inability to practice at some points in October and just freshmen getting their game legs. Like I said, a lot of guys, Noah [Batchelor] didn’t play much last year, Jahari [Long] didn’t play much last year. Jordan had a totally different role here than he was at Indiana. Guys just doing different things than they have been. So I knew it would be a little bit rocky. I’m really pleased with our defense. I thought our defense the first three games were really good. So, I mean, from that standpoint, I thought we made strides on the defensive end but offensively, we just, that’s where we gave the game away. We literally gave the ball away to the other team. That’s why we lost.”
On the importance of nonconference games like the Gavitt Games
“I think they were much more important maybe five to ten years ago when you played 16 conference games and you had so many nonconference games. You’re talking about maybe us going to 22 conference games. That’s 22 high major games plus everybody plays a tournament, so you’re talking about 25 high major games. From a standpoint of durability, if we go any more high major games, we have to make the season longer and we have to have more days off for these kids. Most people don’t talk about it that way. That’s why the NBA is such a long season because they play so many games, but they play against big, physical guys every night. If you’re going to play 25 high major games, your kids need more than one day’s rest or two days rest. We have to expand the season by almost, in my opinion, two weeks. So, not that the lower levels are any more, it’s just the size difference is unbelievable. So I don’t think they’re nearly as important as they are. I’ve been on both sides. For us now, I just, it doesn’t make any sense for the Big Ten to be in the Gavitt games as much as I like the Gavitt games…We have 18 teams, they only have 11. So, from a scheduling standpoint, if you’re not playing every year, and it’s every other year or every two years, it’s really hard to schedule, balance your schedule from that standpoint of not being able to know that every year you’re going to have to be in the Gavitt games. So if you’re only going two out of every three years, you’re third year now, you have to balance a home-and-home with another team, but then all of a sudden you’re throwing the Gavitt Games back on. So I think that’s really where, I think, why we’re not going to play them. It’s just the fact that 18 and 11 doesn’t fit and it makes scheduling going forward really hard.”
On how the season would hypothetically expand as Willard suggested
“I’d like to start the season a little bit earlier. We start practice so, so early. I’d like to have… I really think college basketball should be, we should have four exhibition games. We should be allowed four exhibition games and then start the season [in] early October. We play mostly during the week anyway, so it doesn’t affect college football nearly as much and it won’t affect obviously NFL in this area. But I’d like to see us expand the season, have four exhibition games because it’s better than four practices on the weekend and make the season two weeks longer.”
On how Donta Scott impacts the current team
“He reminds me of a Draymond Green type of guy. His stats are never great but they’re always there and he’s always, he’s got the toughness. He has everybody’s back. He does so many good things that people don’t see. He’s a guy that I know when he’s on the floor that, although he might make a mistake or do something, he’s going to make up for it with great effort and great hustle. So I think Donta is one, again, Donta is one of those guys that no matter where he plays in the future, someone’s going to be really happy that he’s on the court.”
On good vs. bad turnover
“The good turnovers are the ones to the cheerleaders, the bad ones are to the other team.”
On how hard it is for a player to understand the difference between a good vs. bad turnover
“I think it takes a little time. It really does. UAB would have had 18 points at half. I mean, that’s a pretty good half coming on a day’s rest playing against a pretty good team, a team had put up, what, 67 against Clemson the night before. They would’ve had 18 in a half if we hadn’t given them. We threw it underneath out of bounds, number four got it, dunked it. He got a steal off a live ball, went and got a layup, and then we turned it over to the next play. Three straight turnovers and went from up 14 to only up six. And I think guys realize that if you’re gonna make a turnover, you gotta make a turnover. Those weren’t aggressive turnovers. They were all passive turnovers in my mind and instead of going in at halftime, you also take away, kids love stats, you take away three chances for shots, three chances for assists, three chances for an offensive rebound. It affects everybody. It just doesn’t affect the score. It affects your teammates too. So instead of going up 34-18 and feeling really good about yourself, you go in at halftime 30-24 and you’re like we just played a good half and we’re only up six. And that’s kind of, that was a little bit of our issue last year at times and early on this year, same thing happened on Mount [St. Mary’s]. The same thing happened to Davidson. We’re not good enough. I don’t think any team is good enough to be able to hand the ball to the other team and just give them layups. Our defense has been really good. We’ve made teams work. Our three point, Davidson hit some shots late in the game and we lost guys, but I was okay with that if we hadn’t given up, but the turnovers are a major issue. And again, two of them were my fault because I had a lineup in there that hadn’t practiced together and they pretty much ran into each other. So I have to take a lot of that blame because I had guys out there that weren’t comfortable in what they were supposed to be doing.”
On Villanova’s differences in style of play between Kyle Neptune and Jay Wright
“Kyle’s doing a good job. They seem to be taking a little bit more three pointers than Jay’s team did, but not much, I think it’s like, I think it’s four a game more they’re taking. They’re still jump stopping, pivoting, still running the same offense. Defensively, they do the same thing. They switch a lot, they’re aggressive. They rebound the ball at a high level. I think Kyle’s done a really good job of transitioning from what Jay did to keeping that consistent, considering the fact that he’s got a senior-laden team that kind of knows what they’re doing. So I think Kyle’s done a heck of a job.”
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