Maryland men’s basketball dominated its first two games of the 2024-25 season even without Julian Reese and Selton Miguel at their best.
The junior forward and fifth year guard looked uncomfortable in the Terps’ first two games, but led the way in Maryland’s 84-53 win over Florida A&M at Xfinity Center on Monday. Reese scored 21 points and grabbed 9 rebounds while Miguel added 14 points on 5-for-9 shooting.
Reese took somewhat of a backseat early with freshman big man Derik Queen in the fold along with a bevy of new teammates who are still learning his tendencies.
“Julian hasn’t been frustrated, but when you put this many new guys out there with him, there is a learning curve understanding where he likes the ball, when to get him the ball,” coach Kevin Willard said. “He has been really unselfish.”
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Miguel was nursing a sprained ankle that he suffered days before Maryland’s season-opener. He played in the first half of that game before Willard subbed him out for the entire second half.
He scored 11 points on 4-for-11 shooting Friday in the Terps’ win over Mount St. Mary’s. He looked more like the dynamic scorer Willard recruited out of South Florida on Monday.
It’s the first time in program history that the Terps won their first three games of the year by at least 30 points. The average KenPom ranking of their opponents is outside the top 300, though, and Florida A&M sits in the bottom 10 nationally.
Willard’s team has its first real test looming, with No. 15 Marquette traveling to College Park on Friday.
Maryland started slow in each of its first two games of the year but did the opposite on Monday. Its press forced two 10-second violations in the first three minutes, and they scored the first 15 points of the game — 12 of which came off turnovers.
“From that winning season, my sophomore year, [pressing] was our identity. And for us to get back to that, we just got to come out punching guys in the mouth like we did today,” Reese said.
The Terps stopped pressing and their offense stalled as a result, making just three of their next 17 shots and going on a six-minute field goal drought. Florida A&M cut the lead to as close as five.
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Maryland snapped out of its rut and entered the break with a 40-21 lead. But it only shot 2-for-11 from 3, with 24 of its points coming in the paint.
That mark only marginally improved to 6-for-18 in the second, where Maryland outscored Florida A&M, 44-to-32. It’s shooting 29.3 percent from beyond the arc through three games — the Terps’ mark of 28.9 percent last year was the third-worst in the country among high-major teams.
The Terps’ sizable lead led them to experiment with some unorthodox looks — including letting Queen take the ball up, which he dribbled all the way across the court before slamming it in with both hands.
The freshman tallied 11 points and a team-high three assists alongside two rebounds, blocks and steals. He hasn’t come close to repeating his historic 22-point, 20-rebound debut in the two games since, but was productive in just 17 minutes on Monday.
Transfer guards Ja’Kobi Gillespie and Rodney Rice each added double-digit points, which they’ve done in all three games this season. Maryland’s scoring balance — albeit against inferior talents — has been one of its most encouraging traits, with five players scoring at least 10 points on Monday and a different leading scorer each game.
“We’re definitely more balanced,” Willard said. “That starting unit kinda knows there’s no pressure on one guy … there’s a lot of really good players on this team that can help everybody.”
