Kevin Willard on roster comfort, Jahmir Young's status heading into Purdue

May 14, 2024
With the calendar turned to 2024, Maryland men’s basketball will look to open the New Year with its first signature win of the season when they welcome top-ranked Purdue to the Xfinity Center on Tuesday night.

Maryland has won five straight and eight of their last nine games after the slow start, but picking up its first Quad 1 win and getting back over .500 in conference play will add credence to the Terps’ renewed play. Head coach Kevin Willard pointed to the comfort along the roster as the reason why he’s most confident heading into 2024.

“I think the continuity in minutes has been really good. I think guys have gotten comfortable with their roles and where shots are coming and I think they’re much more comfortable right now with how to play and what to do than they were, say, a month ago,” Willard said Monday.

Aside from finding consistency with its perimeter shooting, the biggest question through December has been whether Maryland could find consistent scoring from its supporting cast. Maryland was able to control UCLA on the road with a historic performance from Jahmir Young while Donta Scott chipped in as the two combined for 54 of Maryland’s 69 points in the win.

Thursday night gave Maryland a chance to answer that with Jahmir Young (flu) unavailable, thrusting Jahari Long into the starting rotation, but Willard pointed to the early pair of conference games that helped the team iron out some of its early issues.

“The fact that we played two Big Ten games early in December, I think the two early Big Ten games kind of help figure some things out for us. Obviously playing a very big and physical Indiana team on the road and then playing Penn State at home, I think those two games really helped us grow more than any non-conference game. I think we really were able to kind of focus in on some major issues and really correct some things and get better at some things after those two Big Ten games.”

Meanwhile, head coach Kevin Willard was optimistic about the veteran’s status heading into Tuesday.

“Jahmir’s doing well. He’s got back into practice the last couple of days. We’ve been slow with him cause he did have a really bad flu. He missed quite a bit of time but the great thing about Jahmir is he’s such a well-conditioned athlete that he’s able to bounce back so he’s looked good in practice.”

Kevin Willard on roster comfort, Jahmir Young’s status heading into Purdue

Ahmed Ghafir