Takeaways: With UCLA looming, Maryland men’s basketball enjoys block party as Donta Scott finds his groove
The Maryland men’s basketball team seems to be happiest inside Xfinity Center in College Park. An 18-game home winning streak – fueled by Tuesday night’s 73-67 victory over Nicholls State – that ranks as the fifth-longest active run among Division I programs is proof.
The question is whether the Terps can carry over that success on the road.
Maryland (7-4) has dropped all four games away from College Park this season, matching the 1986-87 squad that opened that campaign with four consecutive road losses. A setback at UCLA (5-5) Friday night at Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles would send the Terps into the company of the 1949-50 team that lost its first seven away games.
Avoiding that fate and breaking out of its rut would seem to be a high priority, but coach Kevin Willard was more concerned about having to tip off against the Colonels at 8:30 p.m. the day before traveling to California.
“I’m hoping to play better on the road,” he said. “I would have liked to not have to play at 8:30 at night when we have to travel tomorrow. But I don’t think the Big Ten really cares about that. I guess this is going to be the way we do it now that we have four West Coast teams [when Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington join the conference in 2024]. We’re going to play an 8:30 game and have to travel the next day and then play a game on the West Coast. So I’m interested to see how this thing works out.”
Here are three more observations from Tuesday night’s win.
An angry Donta Scott might be a productive Donta Scott
A variety of factors could have played a role in the fifth-year senior small forward’s 15-point, seven-rebound showing. And then there was his perspective on his play against Nicholls State.
“I feel like when they started talking trash, it just elevated me a lot more,” he said. “At that point, I wanted all the smoke. I wanted people to fear me, I wanted people to try to go at me on the court so that they know that they can’t when I stop them.”
It’s unclear who Scott was referring to. But at one point during the second half, he loudly insisted on guarding Colonels senior small forward Diante Smith, who was limited to seven points on 1 of 6 shooting in the period.
Regardless of the motivation, Scott’s performance was a sight for sore eyes. In his previous four starts, he scored a combined 19 points on 7 of 31 shooting and was especially inaccurate from 3-point range as he converted only 1 of 11 shots from behind the arc.
On Tuesday night, Scott connected on 4 of 8 3-point attempts. After the game, Willard said he didn’t doubt that Scott would bounce back.
“I’ve been talking to Donta for the last week,” he said. “Donta’s been phenomenal in practice. He’s been our best player in practice, and then he goes out to games, and he hasn’t brought the same energy that he’s brought in practice, and I just want him to focus on being the Donta Scott who plays hard, runs the floor, gets rebounds, does some things that really help the team. I thought that would help him offensively, and I think it did.”
Free throws should be a point of emphasis for Maryland and Julian Reese
Tuesday night was a study in contrast at the free-throw line. At one end, fifth-year senior point guard Jahmir Young went 10-for-10 from the stripe, extending his streak of made free throws to 36 and nearing the school record of 40 set by Juan Dixon.
At the other end, Reese missed eight of 11 attempts at the line. That’s a career-high number for the junior power forward who grew up in Randallstown and graduated from St. Frances. When Reese converted two free throws with 5:03 left in the second half, a significant portion of the 11,004 in attendance loudly cheered.
Willard defended Reese’s showing, saying, “Ju had a tough night. If Ju has his normal night, it’s probably a different story. He struggled a little bit. But that’s going to happen every once in a while.”
Reese’s troubles contributed to the Terps missing 10 of 29 free throws against Nicholls State. It marks the third game this season they strayed into double-digit territory in missed free throws, and they whiffed on nine attempts in their two previous games, including an 81-75 overtime win against Penn State on Dec. 6.
At 69.9% from the line (216 of 309), Maryland ranks 10th out of 14 in the Big Ten and 209th out of 351 Division I programs. Young acknowledged that the team must fare better in free throws as it prepares to dive into conference play.
“We know in league play and in games moving forward, we’re going to have to knock those down,” he said. “Tonight was just an off night from the line. We’ve been shooting the ball great from the line, I feel like. Guys had an off night from the line, but I feel like they’re going to pick it up right where they left off from before.”
Maryland’s defense was powered by its ability to block shots
As poorly as Reese performed at the free-throw line, he was a monster on the defensive end of the floor. He blocked a career-high six shots, and the Terps finished with 13 blocks – the most by a Big Ten team this season and the most by the program since Dec. 8, 2018, when that squad also had 13 blocks against Loyola Chicago.
Willard praised the 6-foot-9, 230-pound Reese for not allowing his struggles on offense to impact his ability to be a force on defense.
“Ju’s been really good all year defensively,” he said. “He struggled a little tonight offensively. I was proud of him that he really focused on the defensive end.”
Few teams can rely on getting double-digit blocks consistently. But on a night when the offense went only 10 of 27 from 3-point range (37%), the ability to thwart Nicholls State shots was a key factor in the Colonels dropping from 71.4% (5 of 7) from behind the arc in the first half to 46.7% (7 of 15) in the second half.
“I think we just kind of elevated our defense,” Scott said. “So that kind of helped the blocks.”
Maryland at UCLA
Friday, 9 p.m.
TV: ESPN2
Radio: 105.7 FM