Manning addresses slow start, Hart serving as "one of our glue pieces," backcourt consistency in win
- Ahmed Ghafir
- Dec 30, 2021
- 4 min read
Updated: Apr 4, 2022
Thursday night’s game against Brown served as the final tune-up game for Maryland ahead of Big Ten play resuming and after 40 minutes, it showed the Terps remain a work in progress.
The two teams traded baskets early before Qudus Wahab picked up a pair of fouls in the first three minutes, sending him to the bench early. But Brown, who entered the game shooting 42.6% from the field this season, shot 50% from the field through the first half and built a lead as many as seven points. Just five Terps scored in the first half, a trend that’d continue through the night as Maryland’s usual starting five were responsible for all but two of the team’s eventual 81 points. Maryland head coach Danny Manning knew “today’s game was a really good test for us” with Big Ten play looming next week, but the slow starts leave room for growth.
“We came out a little bit too slow to our liking in terms of the stance what we needed to do, and we know moving forward, we cannot continue to have halves like that, especially when a team shoots 50%,” Manning added postgame. But as Maryland fans have seen ample times already this season, the backcourt combo of Eric Ayala and Fatts Russell helped facilitate the second-half scoring, eventually helping outscore Brown 46-28 over the final 20 minutes.
“I think when Fatts [Russell] and Eric [Ayala] are playing the way that they're playing right now, it just makes us that much tougher,” Manning added. After leaving Tuesday’s game vs. Lehigh early due to a knee injury, Russell was considered a game-time decision leading into tonight but was able to work with the medical and training staff to make suiting up a possibility. Manning added that Fatts “didn’t do anything yesterday” as the staff ramped up the activity today in order to test his ability to play. “We got some shots up, we moved around. We purposely did that because we wanted to see how he was moving, and he moved well around two o'clock today. Came back in before the game, still feeling good and the doctors and everybody signed off on it. He felt comfortable enough to play and we're very happy that he did because he comes out and you know, the way he plays—18 points, five assists.”
Russell admitted that the adrenaline helped block out the pain during the game. “Once I started playing it felt, like, regular kind of. Like right now it's kind of hurting. And yesterday it was hurting really bad, but you know, I felt good waking up this morning and I thought I'd give it a go so I did.”
It wasn’t just the backcourt though as Hakim Hart's presence once again loomed large on both ends as he finished with 17 points (6-of-9) and 8 rebounds, leading Manning to explain why he's “one of our glue pieces.”
“That's not a knock to him because he does everything well. And that's part of the reason why he has you know, an adjective associated with his style of play is glue. Because he can play the point, he can play the two, he can play the three, we can go small and play him at the four. He knows all the plays. He's an efficient player in terms of, you know, tonight, he only gets…nine shots, but he makes six of them. You know, he knocks down a three, has four assists, and probably the biggest contribution he had was he slowed down their stud in the second half. You know, we put him on Choh, and he did a tremendous job of setting the tone and making Choh work a lot harder in the second half and Choh’s a talented basketball player and I thought Hakim did a really good job of slowing them down a little bit.”
The team will rest tomorrow as they reset and reshift their focus to Big Ten play, starting with a road game against Iowa on Monday night. While the shots might not be falling as consistently as Manning and the Terps would like, the biggest question remains one that’s been asked several times through the years—how to fix the first-half slumps.
“We have to do a better job of coming out and getting started and you're absolutely right about that. You know, the one thing we'll continue to harp on with our guys is being disruptive defensively, not many teams get into their flow. And the last two games, Lehigh and then Brown, those guys got into a flow offensively. And once teams get into a flow, and particularly once good players get into a flow, it's hard to slow them down. So, we have to do a much better job of slowing guys down.”
Maryland will tipoff at Iowa on Monday, January 3 for a 9 PM tipoff.
