2023-2024 Terps Basketball

[Oriole4Life]

Nice win last night, flying out west and winning on the road is never easy. Young was brilliant. I liked seeing Harris-Smith play with a little more confidence. Traore got on the court, he has tons of size but needs lots of work with his fundamentals. Also needs to bulk up cuz he was getting out-muscled in the paint.

Transferring out is mostly about playing time. Harris-Smith, Kaiser, and Lamothe will be the main guys next year, assuming Reese moves on, which also isn't guaranteed. I don't see any of them transferring, unless for some reason they just hate the culture.

[Oriole4Life]

Terps got Palmer, who is AAU teammates with Queen.

[SemperFi]

On 1/4/2024 at 8:10 AM, Oriole4Life said:

Terps got Palmer, who is AAU teammates with Queen.

Yawn...a ~100 guard who can't shoot, perfect fit for Willard's offense.  If Willard can't recruit he's in trouble because his talent evaluation and coaching are questionable so far.  Blaming the lack of student attendance (break) on coming out flat against the #1 ranked team was simply deflecting attention from his lack of preparation and motivation.   

I never thought I would see the day when the Maryland football team was in better shape than the basketball team.

[Jagwar]

On 1/5/2024 at 9:00 AM, SemperFi said:

Yawn...a ~100 guard who can't shoot, perfect fit for Willard's offense.  If Willard can't recruit he's in trouble because his talent evaluation and coaching are questionable so far.  Blaming the lack of student attendance (break) on coming out flat against the #1 ranked team was simply deflecting attention from his lack of preparation and motivation.   

I never thought I would see the day when the Maryland football team was in better shape than the basketball team.

You must not remember the Bob Wade era or the rough first 4 years of Gary Williams. 

[SemperFi]

12 hours ago, Jagwar said:

You must not remember the Bob Wade era or the rough first 4 years of Gary Williams. 

Sure I do, I played (actually sat) in PG county in the late 70's-had season tickets for many years.  Wade for all his faults could certainly recruit and GW was hamstrung by Wade's transgressions.  These are the most recent KenPom numbers, they are flat out awful-bear in mind that the only reason the defense numbers look decent is the SOS (stregnth of schedule).  How could a veteran Md offense be so awful to be ranked 161 with a SOS of 348???

KENPOMS

Last / Current

overall 78 / 80

defense 28 / 33

offense 155 / 161

sos 345 / 348

3pt% 338 / 340

Willard has had a tough time with the portal, NIL, assistant's leaving-but he's in his third recruiting cycle and has brought in ONE Big Ten starter.  At $3.9m he's paid within $150k of being a top ten coach in MCB and he's not producing by any stretch of the imagination.  

In the Wade years there was hope because of the talent, in the early GW years there was hope because he could coach-with Willard I just don't see anything to give me hope.

[Jagwar]

8 hours ago, SemperFi said:

Sure I do, I played (actually sat) in PG county in the late 70's-had season tickets for many years.  Wade for all his faults could certainly recruit and GW was hamstrung by Wade's transgressions.  These are the most recent KenPom numbers, they are flat out awful-bear in mind that the only reason the defense numbers look decent is the SOS (stregnth of schedule).  How could a veteran Md offense be so awful to be ranked 161 with a SOS of 348???

KENPOMS

Last / Current

overall 78 / 80

defense 28 / 33

offense 155 / 161

sos 345 / 348

3pt% 338 / 340

Willard has had a tough time with the portal, NIL, assistant's leaving-but he's in his third recruiting cycle and has brought in ONE Big Ten starter.  At $3.9m he's paid within $150k of being a top ten coach in MCB and he's not producing by any stretch of the imagination.  

In the Wade years there was hope because of the talent, in the early GW years there was hope because he could coach-with Willard I just don't see anything to give me hope.

Hamstrung is right. Bob Wade's team went 9-17, 18-13 and 9-20, and then left Gary Williams with a 3 years probation, no NCAA tourney for 2 years and no live television for an entire season.  

[Oriole4Life]

While I am disappointed with this year so far, I would like to remind you that this is Willard's second season with the team.  He made the tournament in his first year and even won a game.  I feel like a new coach needs at the very least three full seasons to have a decent sense of how he is doing developing talent.  

Home game Thursday vs. Michigan, chance to get back on track.  Terps need to string together 4-5 wins in order to get back into the tournament conversation.  Beating Illinois on the road on 1/14 would be nice.

[SemperFi]

14 hours ago, Jagwar said:

Hamstrung is right. Bob Wade's team went 9-17, 18-13 and 9-20, and then left Gary Williams with a 3 years probation, no NCAA tourney for 2 years and no live television for an entire season.  

Not sure what your point is relative to Willard's teams?  We all know Slaughter was a flawed individual who hired Wade without properly vetting him or even knowing that Wade at Dunbar was able to recruit the city-Mugsy and Reggie Williams went there to study denture making.  He was unprepared to run a D1 program-let alone one after Bias died. 

If you are comparing FB/BB in that era I'd still take Wade (Walt, Brian Williams, Mustaf) and Gary over Krivak/Duffner easily.  

[Jagwar]

8 hours ago, SemperFi said:

Not sure what your point is relative to Willard's teams?  We all know Slaughter was a flawed individual who hired Wade without properly vetting him or even knowing that Wade at Dunbar was able to recruit the city-Mugsy and Reggie Williams went there to study denture making.  He was unprepared to run a D1 program-let alone one after Bias died. 

If you are comparing FB/BB in that era I'd still take Wade (Walt, Brian Williams, Mustaf) and Gary over Krivak/Duffner easily.  

My comment was aimed at your original post

On 1/5/2024 at 9:00 AM, SemperFi said:

I never thought I would see the day when the Maryland football team was in better shape than the basketball team.

 

[SemperFi]

14 hours ago, Jagwar said:

My comment was aimed at your original post

 

and you do realize that the MCF team finished around ~45 and the MCB team fell 2 spots last night to 70 KENPOM and 116 NET?  

Look Willard has a long leash but he was given a HUGE contract for a guy that has to this point a mediocre coaching career.  He's paid a ~top 10  salary and given a top 10 budget (7th in NCAA http://tinyurl.com/2s3t7u93 ) with the expectation that Maryland would be around a top ~15 program-nothing I have seen so far leads me to believe they will.

One could make the point the DMV is not a desired location, that they produce less recruits than 20 years ago, that NIL is stacked against them, that they are a UA school, that he lost his assistants, the portal sucks, that he was played by HD and possibly Queen but after awhile they just become excuses like my favorite -"I'm not sure what happened-they practiced great".

1Bill SelfKansas$10,600,000Big 12

2John CalipariKentucky$8,533,483SEC

3Tom IzzoMichigan St$5,738,727Big Ten

4Rick BarnesTennessee$5,450,000SEC

5Bruce PearlAuburn$5,449,152SEC

6Chris Beard (was hired by Ole Miss,
will be paid $3.25M/year)Texas$5,005,000Big 12

7Tony BennettVirginia$4,830,345ACC

8Brad UnderwoodIllinois$4,600,550Big Ten

9Bob HugginsWest Virginia$4,150,000Big 12

10Mick CroninUCLA$4,100,000Pac-12

11Eric MusselmanArkansas$4,100,000SEC

12Buzz WilliamsTexas A&M$4,100,000SEC

13Dana AltmanOregon$4,009,500Pac-12

14Tommy LloydArizona$4,000,000Pac-12

15Kevin WillardMaryland$3,900,000Big Ten

Which name doesn't belong-you can take out the imploded Huggins and Beard?  The disparity is glaring.

 

 

 

[Can_of_corn]

Oh, so it looks like Maryland beat #10 Illinois.  76-67.

On the road even.

Cool.

[Oriole4Life]

Huge win! Young and Reese were marvelous. Harris-Smith hit a big 3 late which was nice to see. Biggest win of the season by far. Gotta keep the momentum going and beat Northwestern on the road.

[SemperFi]

6 hours ago, Oriole4Life said:

Huge win! Young and Reese were marvelous. Harris-Smith hit a big 3 late which was nice to see. Biggest win of the season by far. Gotta keep the momentum going and beat Northwestern on the road.

Really nice call, Illinois is a very good (top 10) defensive team and MD was aggressive on the ball and with cuts leading to a 2/1 asst to TO rate and 52 points in the paint.  Willard is a really good defensive coach but they need that level of execution and effort on offense.  The analytics don't lie, Md simply can't pass around the perimeter and chuck up 25 3's a game.

My concern is that after what we saw last year, changes in the roster, the Italy trip-why did it take them so long to get the "motion" in their 4/1 motion-and can they keep it up.  Huge difference watching them yesterday versus first half Michigan or Villanova/Davidson.

One of the reasons they shoot so poorly from 3 is their perimeter passing.  Willard lamented that they had missed 7 open 3's in the first half recently but if you look closely on 3-4 of those shots the feed was poor and the shooter had to reach altering his timing and look.  

 

[Oriole4Life]

10 hours ago, SemperFi said:

Really nice call, Illinois is a very good (top 10) defensive team and MD was aggressive on the ball and with cuts leading to a 2/1 asst to TO rate and 52 points in the paint.  Willard is a really good defensive coach but they need that level of execution and effort on offense.  The analytics don't lie, Md simply can't pass around the perimeter and chuck up 25 3's a game.

My concern is that after what we saw last year, changes in the roster, the Italy trip-why did it take them so long to get the "motion" in their 4/1 motion-and can they keep it up.  Huge difference watching them yesterday versus first half Michigan or Villanova/Davidson.

One of the reasons they shoot so poorly from 3 is their perimeter passing.  Willard lamented that they had missed 7 open 3's in the first half recently but if you look closely on 3-4 of those shots the feed was poor and the shooter had to reach altering his timing and look.  

 

They definitely are way better scoring 2s than 3s, they showed a stat yesterday on the broadcast yesterday indicating that Maryland was one of the best "scoring 2 point basket" teams in the nation, or something along those lines.  Reese was getting position in the paint and Young was feeding him.  Once Reese gets space and momentum going to his left he is hard to stop.  Even Swanton-Rodger had a nice score under the basket.  I'd like to see him get some more time and develop, cuz Reese in our only consistent big.

Outside shooting is indeed terrible.  You are correct in that the set-up pass should be crisp enough so the shooter can gather and shoot in a fluid motion, that is not something I noticed.  Oddly enough, I though two of the biggest buckets in the second half were 3s by Harris-Smith and Geronimo.  Gonna need contributions like that if the Terps want to go anywhere this year.  Young, Scott, and Reese can only do so much.

[Oriole4Life]

After watching Maryland lose at home to Rutgers a couple of days ago, I am sure this is a wasted season.  Offense is so putrid to watch, no one can create shots, and when guys do get open shots they either pass them up or brick.  

Gonna have to win 3 out of the next 4 to even be remotely in the conversation for the tournament, and that is highly unlikely.