Andre Mills sets new career-high in Maryland basketball's road loss vs. Northwestern

Chase King
19 hours ago
3 min read

Andre Mills scored the most points by a Maryland freshman since Diamond Stone in 2015, but the Terps could not overcome Northwestern's shooting barrage.

Maryland men’s basketball (10-16, 3-12) continued its road stretch visiting the Northwestern Wildcats (11-16, 3-13), where they would fall short, losing 78-74.

Entering the game, Maryland had lost its last two trips to Evanston, with its loss last year coming at the buzzer as Northwestern's Nick Martinelli hit a floater to send the Terps home with a 76-74 loss.

Both teams have had a middling 2026 season and entered the game desperate for some sort of momentum to help turn the season around.

Maryland would come out with the same three-forward starting lineup that uses Solomon Washington, Elijah Saunders and Collin Metcalf.

To start the game, both teams were hot on the offensive end. Maryland went 7-for-10 from the field to open the game, while Northwestern went 8-for-10.

Mills scored the Terps first eight points to start his career night. Mills would continue to carry the offensive load for the Terps through the first half, scoring 22 of the 34 points. No other Terp finished the first half with over four points.

Northwestern would enter the half with a one-point lead after shooting 13-of-27 on field goal attempts and 5-for-9 on three-point attempts.

Nick Martinelli, the Big Ten’s leading scorer, led Northwestern with 13 points in the first half.

Martinelli averages 22.1 points per game, with the Wildcat’s second-highest scorer, Arrinten Page, only averaging 10.7 points per game.

Maryland would take control at the start of the second half as they saw more contributions from Darius Adams and Diggy Coit on the offensive end. The Terps would get up to a 50-44 lead with 13:21 left in the second half.

After a Maryland turnover, Northwestern would turn the tide by drilling three straight three-pointers. Maryland’s defense was slow on rotating to Northwestern’s shooters throughout the game, and Northwestern started taking advantage.

Northwestern would take those three-pointers and turn them into a 19-3 run that would put them in the driver’s seat for the rest of the game.

Northwestern’s Jordan Clayton would light up the Terps from behind the arc, shooting 6-of-7. He would finish the game with a career-high 20 points.

“I would say that's the highest number of threes they've made. Their analytics say that our plan was right,” said Head Coach Buzz Williams. “You are going to give up some. Our contests were not great at times. Probably should have something else better to say.”

Maryland’s offense finished with 15 turnovers that would lead to 17 points from turnovers and 10 fast-break points.

“We just gave the ball to them too many times. I [have] just got to keep trying to figure out a way to help them,” said Williams.

“And if you have 15 turnovers, you can't turn it over in the 20 percentile range. It's too much pressure for any team, but specifically our team.”

The Terps would continue a comeback effort, largely coming through Mills, and would close the gap all the way to three points, but it would come in vain as Northwestern put the game away from the free-throw line.

Mills finished the game with a career-high 39 points, which ties Diamond Stone's 2015 performance against Penn State at the top of the Terps freshmen scoring record books.

Mills ended the game shooting 12-for-17 from the field, 6-for-9 from three and 9-for-9 from the free-throw line.

Solomon Washington finished as the Terps' second-highest scorer with 11 points on 3-for-7 from the field while also racking up 4 offensive rebounds and 10 defensive rebounds.

“I thought we played with incredible fight. I thought we did a lot of the things that we had to do. I thought we were better in a lot of ways than we were on Sunday,” said Williams.

Maryland will now return home to host Washington on Saturday at 3 p.m., in an attempt to end its two-game losing streak.

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