Wisconsin coach Greg Gard explained Maryland’s men’s basketball formula best: Maryland goes as Jahmir Young goes.
Against the Badgers, Young took the Terps far. He racked up another quality home performance with 22 points, eight rebounds and five assists in a 73-55 victory Wednesday, Maryland’s fifth in a row at Xfinity Center. When he thrives, so does coach Kevin Wilard’s squad.
In the case that Young scores 14 or more points, the Terps are 10-3. Maryland’s just 3-4 if Young scores less than 14, with those three wins coming in the first five games of the season.
Young takes a high percentage of the Terps’ shots and contributes to many of its possessions when he’s on the floor. He ranks second in the Big Ten in percentage of a team’s shots taken and third in possessions used, a measure of possessions in which a player’s actions end the possession.
“When you have a point guard that good and that aggressive, he makes a lot of things happen for them,” Gard said. ”He was able to break us down, get in the paint, and if it wasn’t him, he was finding people.”
Young continued an admirable scoring stretch in which he’s dropped 20 or more points in four of his last five games. He dropped a total of 108 points in that five-game stretch, the most points he’s scored in any five-game span this season.
[Efficient offense helps Maryland men’s basketball beat Wisconsin, 73-55]
While Young’s scoring has remained a constant this season, Young’s offensive style hasn’t. Coming from three years of playing in the smaller Conference USA, the size and physicality of the Big Ten forced a growth curve for Young.
Now, he’s blossoming.
“Not only has he gotten used to the league, I think he’s gotten in good enough shape where with the way we’re playing, that his second-wind is coming really quick,” Willard said.
“I think he’s gotten much more comfortable with the offense, but I think more than anything, he’s gotten much more comfortable with the physicality and length of the league.”
Willard’s latter point found plenty of credibility with Young’s performance against Wisconsin highlighting more of an uptick in courage driving in the lane.
One rare dunk more than hammered that idea home. Early in the first half, Young exploded out of his stance from the left side of the court and up to the rim for a neat slam that was too quick for anyone to contest.
The 6-foot-1 guard did it again in the waning minutes of the Terps’ win, cutting along the baseline and throwing down his second dunk of the night.
“I’m just trying to be aggressive, if I see an open lane, I’m gonna take it,” Young said.
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That approach has been especially prosperous from a free throw perspective. Young has shot a combined 29 free throws in the Terps’ last three wins and has drawn 5.7 fouls per 40 minutes this season, which ranks fourth in the Big Ten, according to Kenpom.
However, Young is smaller than most players in the conference who draw fouls on a consistent basis. The next shortest Big Ten leader in drawn fouls is Purdue’s 6-foot guard Braden Smith, who ranks just 30th in the conference.
Young’s resurgence comes at a key time for the Terps, who are in the midst of a three-game home stand that will prove crucial to the rest of the season, with three road games and a home test against No. 1 Purdue on tap for February.
If recent history shows anything about how Young will tackle upcoming foes Nebraska and Indiana at Xfinity Center, it’s that he’ll be busy around the basket. He’s averaged 25.5 points per game at home against conference foes, resulting in four wins and zero losses for the Terps.
