I think this is a VERY winnable game for the Terps and the scouting report should be a fairly straight forward one, as well.
The No. 1 thing you have to do when playing Nebraska is run their three-point shooters off the line. That means really hustling and coming at those shooters on EVERY possession and really forcing them to take bad shots or take a dribble or two inside the line and shoot a mid-range jumper. It also means getting back in transition and getting right up on guys like Brice Williams, CJ Wilcher and Tominaga, who, when he's on is arguably the best three-point shooter in America. They shoot 36% as a team from beyond the arc, but more importantly, almost 45% of their shot attempts come from three-point land. Need to force them to dribble drive and try to get the ball inside to their bigs.
Starting forward Juwan Gary is out for the rest of the season which means Nebraska will have to rely even more on Rienk Mast inside and you now have a little used senior in Josiah Allick and little used freshman in Eli Rice trying to pick up the slack. Again, all the more reason to run them off the three-point line and force them to go inside.
Offensively, the Terps need to obviously just continue to let Jamir Young do his thing. But other than that, Donta Scott should have some opportunities to back down the freshman Rice in the post when he's in the game as that could be a bit of a mismatch. They could also run some baseline action to get him open for threes.
Finally, limit turnovers and hope that Reese dominates the matchup inside on both ends of the floor. I think this is a matchup where if they can just do the things they need to do defensively and play with max effort on that end and those three can doing the bulk of the scoring like they have been, they have an excellent shot at getting back to .500 in league play with some serious momentum heading into the home stretch of the season.
The No. 1 thing you have to do when playing Nebraska is run their three-point shooters off the line. That means really hustling and coming at those shooters on EVERY possession and really forcing them to take bad shots or take a dribble or two inside the line and shoot a mid-range jumper. It also means getting back in transition and getting right up on guys like Brice Williams, CJ Wilcher and Tominaga, who, when he's on is arguably the best three-point shooter in America. They shoot 36% as a team from beyond the arc, but more importantly, almost 45% of their shot attempts come from three-point land. Need to force them to dribble drive and try to get the ball inside to their bigs.
Starting forward Juwan Gary is out for the rest of the season which means Nebraska will have to rely even more on Rienk Mast inside and you now have a little used senior in Josiah Allick and little used freshman in Eli Rice trying to pick up the slack. Again, all the more reason to run them off the three-point line and force them to go inside.
Offensively, the Terps need to obviously just continue to let Jamir Young do his thing. But other than that, Donta Scott should have some opportunities to back down the freshman Rice in the post when he's in the game as that could be a bit of a mismatch. They could also run some baseline action to get him open for threes.
Finally, limit turnovers and hope that Reese dominates the matchup inside on both ends of the floor. I think this is a matchup where if they can just do the things they need to do defensively and play with max effort on that end and those three can doing the bulk of the scoring like they have been, they have an excellent shot at getting back to .500 in league play with some serious momentum heading into the home stretch of the season.
