Maryland men’s basketball coach Mark Turgeon stopped practice the other day, recognizing an opportunity to teach freshman guard Anthony Cowan Jr.
Turgeon, who played point guard at Kansas from 1983 to 1987, showed the 6-foot freshman an option he could go to when trying to feed one of the frontcourt players in the post.
“He was showing Ant how to do a wrap-around pass,” forward Damonte Dodd recalled during Big Ten media day Oct. 13. “He was like, ‘It’s not going to be like how I used to do it,’ but he was trying to teach it.”
These kinds of moments have been more common this season for the sixth-year coach, who brought in six freshmen and a graduate transfer to join guard Melo Trimble, the only returning starter from last year’s team.
“We got a lot of young guys, so practices have been a little bit longer than they’ve probably wanted them to be,” Turgeon said at the team’s media day Tuesday. “We’ve had some late nights in this building, but it’s been good.”
Last season, Turgeon had a veteran squad. He didn’t need to teach as much.
The Terps’ backcourt consisted of guards Rasheed Sulaimon, a graduate transfer from Duke, and Trimble, who started all 35 games as a freshman the season before. Add in forwards Robert Carter Jr. and Jake Layman, a junior and senior, respectively, and then-freshman Diamond Stone was the lone Maryland starter without ample experience playing college basketball.
When the younger players made mistakes, Dodd said his older teammates provided advice.
Now a senior, Dodd has taken on a leadership role along with Trimble, and both players have assisted Turgeon in getting Maryland’s freshmen adjusted to the college game.
Turgeon said the veterans, along with the assistant coaches, were especially important in helping out during the summer when Turgeon served as an assistant coach for the U-18 men’s national team that cruised to the FIBA Americas Championship. He then spent September on the recruiting trail before joining the new-look group.
“Oct. 3 was really the first day I was around the guys as far as coaching goes, so that puts you behind,” Turgeon said. “We’re kind of overloading them, but we’re teaching, and it’s fun.”
Freshman Kevin Huerter played for Turgeon this summer, but he’s one of three rookies, along with Cowan and forward Justin Jackson, whom the team expects to make immediate contributions. Duquesne graduate transfer L.G. Gill will also see action in the frontcourt, meaning four of Maryland’s potential contributors have yet to play in a Terps uniform.
Despite the bevy of fresh faces, Turgeon has enjoyed the teaching process, even more so because the team’s been “coachable,” “receptive” and “unbelievably competitive” in practice.
Turgeon said this season also marks the first time in his six-year head-coaching career at Maryland that he’s distrubuted each of the Terps’ scholarships — there were 13 this season.
“It’s made our practices tremendous,” Turgeon said. “We keep track of who wins and post it and things like that, so it’s really helped.”
Trimble said because of the work the Terps put in this summer, the squad is ahead of where it was at this stage the past two seasons. Should Maryland stay healthy, Turgeon thinks they could be “very good” by the start of Big Ten play.
But the veteran coach understands the improvements his team needs to make to reach that level. He’s been encouraged by what he’s seen thus far.
“After the first week I thanked them. After the third week I thanked them because they’ve been great to coach,” Turgeon said. “They’ve been bringing it every day. So it’s a very coachable team, a lot of good pieces.”
