Maryland vs. Michigan
When: Tuesday, Jan. 18 || 7:00 p.m. ET
Where: Crisler Center || Ann Arbor, Mich.
Watch: ESPN2 - Jason Benetti (Play-by-Play), Robbie Hummel (Analyst), Myron Medcalf (Reporter)
Listen: 105.7 FM (Balt) / 980AM (DC) / XM386 - Johnny Holliday, Chris Knoche
Maryland watched an eleven-point lead evaporate in the second half of Saturday’s loss to Rutgers, handing the Terps their fifth Big Ten loss of the season. Maryland will look to bounce back against a reeling Michigan team as the Terps take the floor on Tuesday night.
Since Michigan’s blowout win over Southern Utah back on December 18, the Wolverines have lost three games while seeing another three canceled due to COVID. Their most recent affair came at the hands of Illinois on Friday night, ending in a 15-point loss for the Wolverines as head coach Juwan Howard was without Hunter Dickinson, Brandon Johns, and Zeb Jackson as Dickinson and Johns battle back from COVID.
Dickinson and Johns remain game-time decisions against Maryland as Michigan associate head coach Phil Martelli noted that neither were full participants during Sunday’s practice. “A lot will be based on how they respond and how much they can get into live action [Monday],” he added. For Maryland, head coach Danny Manning is preparing as if Michigan will be at full health “and a couple more guys we don't know they’re adding,” he joked.
“You got to prepare they're going to put their best team out there on the court, and you make adjustments from there,” Manning said on Monday. While the Terps’ interim head coach has reiterated the Terps’ need for paint touches and free-throws to pull out conference wins, the availability of both Dickinson and Johns plays a hand in the Terps’ gameplan. Against Illinois, Michigan was down to just one scholarship player in Moussa Diabate while walk-on Jaron Faulds, also recovering from COVID, played a career-high 12 minutes in the loss.
With Qudus Wahab struggling on the offensive end in recent weeks, the bulk of Maryland’s low post scoring has come from freshman Julian Reese after flashing in non-conference play through the start of the Big Ten season. The freshman center drew his first career start against Rutgers and finished with nine points and seven rebounds, but as Manning noted non-conference play gave Reese a chance to “show glimpses,” Reese is now going through his second wave of growth through conference play.
“It also showed our opponents,” Manning added. “Now they have a pretty good scouting report or book on him on how they want to attack him and things they want to do. And so now, he's got to make another adjustment of thinking instead of playing checkers, we want our guys to think chess. Let's think four or five, six moves down the road opposed to one or two and Julian is getting into that mindset now. His understanding of the game has always been good. He's a sponge, he wants to learn and he's continuing to get better and better and he's just scratching the surface.”
While Maryland irons out the frontcourt heading into Tuesday night, the Terps’ bench once again struggled to provide production after totaling just six points on Saturday--all in the first-half. Manning reiterated the need for Maryland to “continue to do the things that we did to get the lead,” pointing back to the necessary consistency needed for Maryland to turn their season around.
“Every game that we've played in, we put ourselves in a situation where we know we could compete with our opponents. Now it's just a matter of finishing the performance I guess if you will. There have been games where we didn't get off to a good start and we played a good second half. There was a game where we had a good first half and didn't finish the second half the way we wanted to. Right now, it's just we just got to find a way to continue to take steps get better and put it all together. We're close, guys have continued to come out and have great energy great attention to detail and practice, practices are spirited, and the guy feel really good about competing. That's the biggest thing that you want, knowing that we go into every game we're going to compete and we're going to give ourselves a chance to win. We just got to make sure that when it's all said and done, we've got one more point than our opponent.”