Takeaways: short-handed Maryland basketball watches chance at signature win slip away vs. Michigan

Ahmed Ghafir
2 hours ago
3 min read

With a week in between games, head coach Buzz Williams had a chance to position his team to its first signature win of the season with second-ranked Michigan headed to College Park, a chance for the program’s first win against a top-two ranked team since 2013. In the end, Maryland men’s basketball fell by 18 in the third time this season that an opponent has scored 100 points or more. To be fair, all three came against ranked opponents - and to be fair, Maryland is coming off arguably its most impressive showing of the season. We explain:

Eventual absence of Texas A&M senior transfers

After entering the game with a pair of inactives in Isaiah Watts and Guillermo Del Pino, the biggest storyline on Saturday night proved to be Pharrel Payne and Solomon Washington - for different reasons.

Payne finished with seven points and four rebounds in 15 minutes, but with Maryland trailing 37-36 with just over four minutes left in the first half, he would exit the game after Michigan forward Yaxel Lendeborg fell on Payne’s ankle, leading the star Maryland center to be helped off the court before being spotted on crutches on the bench in the closing minutes of the second half. After avoiding a major injury in what looked to be a gruesome fall in the road win vs. Marquette, all eyes will now turn to the status of Payne with a road game against Virginia set for next weekend.

As for Washington, his absence for nearly the entire second half proved to be a limitation in what was already a limited Maryland rotation. But unlike Payne, his absence was his own doing after being assessed a technical foul in the first half for flashing hand guns at the Michigan bench following a made three. Washington was then assessed a second technical foul just 75 seconds into the second half for a shove following a made three pointer by Elijah Saunders, putting Maryland up by nine.

It was a questionable call, one of several on Saturday night including a flagrant assessed to George Turkson Jr. minutes after Washington’s ejection that made it a one-possession game, but it proved to be an impactful one with Michigan gradually taking momentum the rest of the way.

Maryland would then be outscored 22-7 over the next 5:58, setting up Michigan to take its first lead to make the game’s final score change with the Wolverines eventually leading by double digits for the final 8:01.

With the veteran leaders unavailable for the final 18:45, Maryland struggled to find any rhythm offensively and finished with just nine assists on 30 made baskets - compared to Michigan's 28 assists on 35 made shots as they shot 60% from the field.

Diggy Coit steps up

Coit led the way with 31 points, now responsible for two of the team’s three 30-point games this season, but it was how he did it that was most impressive - from three.

Entering the season a career 36% three-point shooter, Coit has exploded from three in spurts this season, but when he’s on, he’s been on. On Saturday night, he was on.

Coit finished once again with eight made three-pointers, tying his own record set vs. Mount St. Mary’s for the second-most single game made threes in program history. The veteran point guard did more than that though, proving himself as a downhill, physical scorer inside after drawing and completing a three-point play to make it a four-point deficit at the U-12 timeout in the second half.

Coit wasn’t alone after Indiana transfer Myles Rice adding 12 of his 15 points in the first half as the duo were the reason why Maryland finished the first half shooting 56% from the field.

Frontcourt inefficiencies

As noted, the absence of both Payne and Washington through nearly the entire second half was glaring, but even with them available through the first 16 minutes of the game, Maryland struggled against a dominant Michigan frontcourt.

Michigan outscored Maryland in the paint in both halves and by 18 in the game with Yaxel Lendeborg and Aday Mara combining for 47 points on nearly 80% shooting.

Maryland was able to get the Wolverines’ frontcourt out of position at times with double teams on Mara, forcing three turnovers including a travel thanks to Turkson in the opening minutes of the second half.

Collin Metcalf played just one minute, combining for three minutes across the first two conference games, with Elijah Saunders drawing a bigger focus in the first half offense over the second half, though added just five points and two rebounds with limited production while accounting for three of Maryland’s eight second-half turnovers.

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