Three takeaways from Maryland men's basketball's exhibition win vs. West Virginia
Maryland men’s basketball moved to 2-0 in exhibition play with a 90-81 overtime win over West Virginia on Sunday. Here are three takeaways from the Terps’ final public exhibition game before the regular season begins.
The Terps gained a month’s worth of experience in one game
One of the goals of playing an exhibition game against a Big 12 opponent, like West Virginia, is to gain experience in a variety of situations before the stakes rise in the regular season.
In the Terps’ win over the Mountaineers, they experienced it all. Trailing by as many as 19 points late in the first half, they experienced what it’s like to give up a big run and get down early. They experienced what it’s like to fight back and climb out of that hole, regaining the lead on a Mike McNair 3-pointer nearly midway through the second half.
They experienced what it’s like to go back and forth down the stretch, as the lead changed hands four times in the final 5:17 of regulation. Leading 75-70 late in the second half, they experienced what it’s like to blow a late-game lead before experiencing what it takes to regroup and win in overtime.
This game should provide Maryland with confidence that even if an opponent shoots an unconscious 8-for-17 from 3-point range, as West Virginia did in the first half, it can take that punch and still find a way to win.
The Lorient Brenen pick-and-roll dunk that forced overtime is a moment Maryland won’t likely face against non-conference opponents Bucknell, Alcorn State or Wagner. It’s a play Williams can use as teaching tape and could pay dividends if his team has to defend a late-game lead against Georgetown or Virginia.
By encountering a variety of situations, Maryland got exactly what it wanted out of this game and should be better for it once the games count.
Pharrel Payne and Andre Mills are Maryland’s two most reliable scoring threats
On a team with 11 newcomers, it can be easy to forget about the players returning from last season’s 12-21 team. In the case of Pharrel Payne and Andre Mills, that would be a major mistake. Against the Mountaineers, the 6-foot-4 Mills and the 6-foot-9 Payne led all scorers with 27 and 26 points, respectively.
Not only did Payne score 26 points, but he also added a team-leading 13 rebounds and two blocks in 37 minutes. As the Mountaineers built a commanding 46-31 halftime lead, Payne was held scoreless for the final 9:11 of the first half and only attempted one shot in the final 8:18. His silence was deafening.
Payne quickly rectified that after halftime, scoring 10 of Maryland’s first 12 second-half points as the Terps cut a 15-point deficit to seven.
While there are times this season where Maryland will need to make a more concerted effort to play through Payne offensively than they did late in the first half, one of the things that makes him so valuable is his ability to create scoring opportunities via the offensive glass. Against West Virginia, he grabbed 10 offensive rebounds that led directly to 11 Maryland second-chance points. For a team that finished 352nd out of 365 Division I teams in field-goal percentage last season, his ability to create second-chance opportunities is invaluable.
Against the Mountaineers, Mills was the perfect perimeter complement to Payne’s inside dominance. Mills ran the floor, attacked the rim, got to the free-throw line and went 4-for-7 from beyond the arc. Despite some questionable shots early in the game, Mills finished an efficient 9-for-15 from the field as he led the team in scoring.
It was fair to wonder whether Mills’ late-season emergence as Maryland’s go-to scorer was driven by the lack of scoring options on last year’s roster, but it’s becoming clearer that Mills is simply the guy who dropped 39 points against Northwestern in February.
Through two exhibition games, Payne and Mills have emerged as Maryland’s most consistent scoring threats. Together, they have significantly raised this team’s offensive floor. Now, its ceiling will be determined by those 11 newcomers.
The Terps need to take better care of the basketball
Through two exhibition games, Maryland has turned the ball over 33 times. For a team that ranked last in the Big Ten in turnover percentage during conference play last season, that number shouldn’t give anyone in College Park the warm fuzzies.
When Buzz Williams’ teams are at their best, they take more shots than their opponents. A critical part of that is winning the offensive rebounding battle, but an equally important part of that equation is winning the turnover battle.
Against the Yellow Jackets, nine players committed at least one turnover, but nobody had more than two. That’s understandable in the first exhibition game of the season, in which 14 players saw the floor.
In Sunday’s win against the Mountaineers, Maryland’s two highest-usage players, Payne and Mills, accounted for nine of the Terps’ 16 turnovers. That’s more concerning. Last season, Payne had at least three turnovers in six of the 10 games he played. If he is going to be the focal point of Maryland’s offense, he will need to cut down on the giveaways.
