Jimmy Patsos joined Maryland basketball on its trip, here's what he noticed about the Terps' losses
"...Queen and Gillespie are our two best players, and you're not going to win if LeBron and Anthony Davis don't play well. You're not going to win if Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown don't play well. You're not going to win. Queen and Gillespie didn't play well, and I thought their effort was just OK..."
The
Maryland men's basketball team will look to rebound from this past weekend's disappointing trip to Northwest.
The Terps (11-4, 1-3 Big Ten) let go of a couple of winnable games, a 75-69 loss at
Washington in which they were favored and an 83-79 loss at then-No. 9
Oregon in which they held a lead in the final five minutes.
Maryland now has an urgent game coming up this Friday when it welcomes No. 22
UCLA to town. The Terps still stand strong in the analytics used by the selection committee, though they are in need of multiple signature wins.
Former longtime Maryland assistant coach
Jimmy Patsos joined
"Inside Access" on 105.7 The Fan on Monday to break down what he has seen from the Terps. He made the trip out west and was in
Seattle for the Washington game.
Patsos spoke about Kevin Willard doing "everything right," the team's need to "have a guy," the responsibility of Derik Queen and Ja'Kobi Gillespie and much more.
ON THE ROAD TRIP
"I think it was a fantastic road trip ... Let me tell you this, that road trip was as good as it possibly can get, whether it was the Metropolitan Grill, the Space Needle, U-Dubs, it was Star Wars night. Yes, I took a picture with Luke Skywalker and Chewy. But they were not ready to play on the first game against the University of Washington, and that really hurt them. I think the trip was great. There was a lot of people out there. It was exciting because we were going to see them in Oregon. I had to come back for the Ravens because four of the schools are working Under Armor, and I had to be back because we have Towson game against Northeastern on Thursday, and we have huge games for the Wizards-Rockets on Tuesday, so I only went to the first part of the road trip, and I flew back.
CONT.
"I just felt
Kevin Willard did everything right. The scout was good. The players just weren't as excited as I thought they were going to be at the tip. And you can't – and Jason, you guys know this – you can't let a team like
Washington, who's kind of a grind it out, first-year coach, they're going to offensive rebound. They let them hang around early, and then they believe they could win. Then we went up nine, and I thought that, you know, DHS had a couple of – he had a three-point play, old-fashioned, and he hit a three.
Julian Reese is ready to go. Queen and Gillespie are our two best players, and you're not going to win if LeBron and Anthony Davis don't play well. You're not going to win if Jayson Tatum and
Jaylen Brown don't play well. You're not going to win. Queen and Gillespie didn't play well, and I thought their effort was just OK. I thought their getting in foul trouble and pouting was not acceptable. I didn't like what I saw.
CONT.
"What I did like was they fought back with other guys.
Rice was ready. I just felt like, you know,
Selton Miguel has been a really good pickup.
Jay Young gave them some minutes and stuff. And Geronimo wasn't bad, but at the end of the day, your two best players – this is a minor league version of pro basketball. And if your pros don't play well, you don't win.
Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry have to play well for the Ravens to win this weekend, Saturday, eight o'clock, I'm ready. Well, they weren't ready, and they gave the one away they could have won. Because now, they all played well. Everything went well yesterday. Gillespie comes back. Queen was good, whatever.
CONT.
"We've seen
Walt Williams to Joe Smith to Steve Francis … to Juan Dixon,
Steve Blake,
Greivis Vasquez, we can go through it. The great players are ready to, fired up and ready to go, and they were not ready to go, and it cost them. Now,
Oregon was a good lesson that we learned, and we played well. So now you got to beat UCLA. I said this before, the Oregon loss, the
Marquette loss wasn't bad.
Purdue, that's OK. We killed
Ohio State. You beat
Syracuse, even though they're a terrible Syracuse team. Villanova's turning it on, it was a good win. Everything was fine this year, but I didn't like what I saw at
Washington, and I thought Willard did a good job keeping his calm and he got ready in the second half. But Queen and Gillespie have to be ready to go from the jump and they have to play better than that, or you're not going to win."
ON FRUSTRATION BOILING WITH ALL FOUR LOSSES BY SIX POINTS OR FEWER, WHAT HE’S SEEING LATE GAME
"Look, you got to have a guy. 'Oh, how can the Celtics loss to the Sixers on Christmas Day?' Because it was
Joel Embiid,
Paul George, those are guys that can help you win games when they have the ball. Right now, Queen and Gillespie have to turn into those guys. You know, the first year, look
Jahmir Young can get you a bucket, OK. JuJu Reese was really good against
West Virginia, we won the NCAA game, I was sitting there. In other words, there's all kinds of factors that go into who can help you win and not win, but your real guys got to produce. And I think Willard's done a really, really – I'm a big
Kevin Willard guy, and I think they've done a really good job.
