Maryland Preview

The 2023-24 regular season is over.  It's time for the 23-game exhibition season to begin.  We have at least that many games to get ready for the 2024-25 season.  The exhibition season begins with Maryland.

The Maryland Terrapins are a lot like us.  Good field, no hit.  Very good defense.  Poor offense.  No wins over good teams.  A loss or two to bad teams.

BTW, it is not true that the Terps nickname is the same as a form of prostate surgery.  It just counds like it.


The computers predict a UCLA win by 4 to 6 points.  

RECORDS


The Terps and Bruins both lost to Villanova.  Maryland lost by 17 in a true road game.  The Bruins lost by 9 in Philly, although not on Villanova's home court.

Maryland's best win is a home win over Penn State.  The Nitty Lions are #136 in the NET and #111 at KenPom.  Their worst loss is to 5-5 UAB, #238 in the NET.

As Phil points out, Maryland has won 6 of their last 7 games.  Five of those wins were over UMBC, South Alabama, Rider, Alcorn State, and Nicholls.  


Maryland is 7-0 at home and 0-4 away from College Park.  Advantage Bruins.  Unlike CSUN, the turtles actually have to travel to this game.

TEAM STATS


The offensive and defensive efficiency number are pretty close for both teams.  These are two very similar teams.

They are the more experienced team, both overall and at playing together.  That should be the case in every game we play the rest of the season.  

They are very good at offensive rebounding, but not very good at defensive rebounding.  We are the opposite.  They miss so many shots, they get a lot of practice at offensive rebounding.   For some reason, that isn't working for us.

They have a better turnover margin.  

NOTE:  The numbers below in parentheses are national ranks.


Why is Maryland's defense so good?  It is three factors. 

1) They are a very good two-point defensive team at #19 in the country. 

2) A big factor in this is they block 13% of shots taken, which is good for #43 in the country.  We are exceptionally good at not getting our shots blocked.  Only 5% of our shots are blocked which makes us #5 in the country.  That is our single best stat on either side of the ball.  

Sebastian Mack needs to notice their shot-blocking prowess.  He needs to be more selective in his drives.

3) They are very good at getting turnovers.  They get a turnover on 22% of possesions which is #33 in the country.

Their weakness is they don't defend the three-point shot very well.  Our three-point shooting has been improving lately, so we should be able to take advantage of that a bit.

On offense, they don't shoot the ball every well from either inside or outside the arc.  They are particularly bad from distance, but surprisingly they shoot a lot of threes.  

One thing they do well on offense is get to the free throw line.  They are #4 in the country at free throw rate.  The are #3 in the country at free throw attempts per game at 29.  (UCLA averages 21.)  However, they are not great at shooting them, at #229 in the country at making free throws.  

Players

The Terrapins are a fairly mature team.  They are #49 in D1 exerience.  5 of their 9 rotation players were on the roster last season.  They added a transfer and 3 freshmen.


Jahmin Young has made more shots and scored more points than anyone else on the team.  He also has missed almost as many shots as anyone else on the team has attempted.  He also leads the team in assists and turnovers by a significant margin.  Expect him to have the ball in his hands a lot.  

He is a 5th-year senior, which means he has been a low-percentage shooter for 5 seasons.  His 31% from beyond the arc is the best accuracy of the Maryland main rotation guys and a hefty 46% of his shots are from beyond the arc. 

I am OK if he shoots a lot.  Let him shoot, but don't foul him.  He has hit 36 consecutive free throws.

Julian Reese is the only player on the team who shoots a high percentage.  It helps that he hasn't attempted three-point shot in the last two season, but he wasn't bad at them as a freshman.  Young may get the glory for scoring a lot, but Reese might be their best players.  

Donta Scott is another guard like Young who shoots poorly and takes too many threes for his anemic shooting percentage.

DeShawn Harris-Smith is another poor-shooting guard.  Notice a patterm here?  Unlike the others he is a freshman.  

Over half of Jahari Long's shots are long shots.  He is one of the worst shooters on a bad-shooting team.  

Jamie Kaiser Jr. has been the worst shooter on the team, yet he plays almost half the game.  Go figure.  Maybe they are waiting for Kaiser to go on a roll.  Like most of their subs, when he shoots mostly three-pointers.  

Noah Batchelor has played 85 minutes this season and doesn't have a single assist.  No wonder he is a Bachelor.  He can't make a connection. 

20 of his 21 shots this year were from beyond the arc.  He is a 100% shooting on his one shot  from inside the arc.  Maybe he shoot more two-point shots.  

Maryland bench players are like the Most Interesting Man in the World.  "They don't shoot very much, but when they do, they prefer to shoot a three."

Outlook

Maryland is a bad offensive team.  They are worse than we are, and we are also a bad offensive team.  So how did they manage to win 7 games?  By playing great defense and generating a lot of turnovers.

Maryland is 1-4 when attempting fewer than 25 freethrows.  

UCLA is 1-5 when getting fewer than 15 assists.  The Bruins are 0-4 when shooting less than 40% from the field.  We are also 0-4 when the opponents commit fewer than 13 turnovers.

So the winning formula is simple.  

• Defend without fouling
• Pass the ball
• Make baskets
• Create turnovers.