Buzz Williams on UCLA's first half run vs. Maryland basketball: "too eerily similar to many of our other halves"

Ahmed Ghafir
1 day ago
3 min read

Maryland men’s basketball opened the second road game of conference play strong after carrying a narrow lead midway through the first half behind a balanced scoring effort primarily from the starting five. Then UCLA closed the first half on a 20-2 run over the final 8:44 to put Maryland in a 17-point hole at halftime.

Elijah Saunders would go on to register his first double-double as a Terp after posting 17 points and 12 rebounds with the bulk of his scoring coming in the second half thanks to three made three pointers, helping Maryland trim the deficit to single digits inside the under-eight timeout then five points with just over six minutes remaining.

That would be the closest Maryland would get, though, with the Bruins ending the final 6:18 on an 11-4 run.

“I thought that in the second half we were much better at the things that we can control, and we had more poise, our pace was a little better,” head coach Buzz Williams said after the game. “I did think that we did a phenomenal job on the glass, arguably, for the entire game. I don't have all of the numbers, but I know in the first half, we offensive rebounded 52% of the misses. I would say, just looking at the box score, we did a good job of that in the second half. I think playing with ten turnovers in the first half versus three in the second half is a big difference. Making zero free throws in the first half versus nine in the second half is a big difference. Obviously, if you don't give it to the other team, you have the ball more. And I thought that we did a better job of getting the ball below the free throw line. Some of that was in the half court. Some of that is because we did a better job getting stops. They made half of their shots in the first half. Only made 32% in the second half. So it's all correlated. It is encouraging that our response in the second half was good. We've got to continue to find ways [on] how to put it together from start to finish more instead of always playing from behind or playing from behind for long, long stretches of the game. So arguably the best second half we've played in Big Ten play, but the first half was too eerily similar to many of our other halves.”

While Pharrel Payne remains out as expected with his timeline to return still unclear with Maryland trying to adjust without its star, one slight change on Saturday was Diggy Coit playing more two than one, but that was the latest effort by Buzz Williams and his staff in figuring out an answer amid a five-game slide.

“I don't have the answer [to] that. I do think Diggy has the propensity to score. I wouldn't have thought that over the last three games he would be struggling in the manner that he is. Part of that is the attention that he draws, which is a good thing on the backside of it, but on the other end, we're trying to find ways to cover up some of his deficiencies defensively. And he's working harder at that, and I do think he's made improvement in regards to understanding what we're doing and the execution of it, as do the kids that are playing with him when he's on the floor. So I thought our plan specific to him defensively tonight was probably the best plan we've had. I thought our ball screen coverage was much better. They set a lot of ball screens. I thought our plan was clear. I thought the execution of that was better. We did a lot better job on unclean rebounds - rebounds that are more traffic related. Somebody gets a fingertip on it, the ball hits the floor. That gave us a chance. So is Diggy the answer? Don't know. Is [Andre Mills] or [Darius Adams] the answer? Don't know. We're still trying to, unfortunately, we're still trying to find some consistency from that.”

Maryland will face USC in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Jan. 13 for a 10:30 PM tipoff.

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