Perspective | Maryland men’s basketball has a fundamental problem

If Maryland is going to advance to the NCAA tournament in Coach Kevin Willard’s second season — and remember, it’s 2½ months till Selection Sunday, so anything can happen — it’s going to have to win tough Big Ten games to offset early-season losses to Davidson and UAB. (Yuck.)

But to win those games in a rigorous conference, the Terrapins are both going to have to grow up and flat-out shoot the ball better. In their first marquee home game of the season, they looked green and — and this is a major problem — couldn’t shoot straight.

“They looked a little nervous,” Willard said frankly, just outside the Terps’ locker room Tuesday night. “They played a little nervous. And that affects your shooting dramatically. Dramatically.

“You’re a little bit more amped up. You’re moving a little bit quicker. We have a couple guys who move a little slower when they’re nervous, and now they’re bobbling the ball. As a coach, sometimes you have to sit back and recognize that you have to wait. They have to go through it. You can’t tell them not to shoot it, because eventually they’re going to have to learn to shoot it.”

They have to learn, and quickly, because the Big Ten schedule comes at them fast, and they’re playing from behind: 9-5 overall, 1-2 in the league.

How to win going forward? You can move the ball effectively and efficiently. You can defend aggressively from baseline to baseline. You can play hard every second. But at some point, the ball has to go through the hoop.

For the Terps, it just hasn’t. Here are Maryland’s rankings nationally in some basic statistical categories before hosting Purdue: 227th in free throw percentage, 298th in field goal percentage and — get this — 335th in three-point percentage. After going 6 for 11 from the line, 21 for 63 from the floor and 5 for 22 from behind the arc against the Boilermakers, their percentage dropped in every category. The ugliness now: 69 percent from the line, 40.9 percent from the floor and an astonishing 27.2 percent from three.

Consider that most of that body of work wasn’t against Purdue and Indiana and UCLA but Rider and Coppin State and Nicholls State and Alcorn State, and it’s troubling. The shots the Terps will get Sunday at Minnesota and then against Michigan and then at Illinois and Northwestern — they’ll be more contested than those they got in November and December. They’re going to have to make more of them anyway.

Take Purdue as a contrast. Now, that’s not fair, because the Boilermakers have 7-foot-4 Zach Edey, a presence unmatched from coast to coast. But Purdue is the No. 1 team in the country because of its résumé — wins over Gonzaga, Tennessee, Marquette, Alabama and Arizona, a gantlet more difficult than an NCAA tournament run — as well as its roster, which is a scary combination of deep and experienced.

But the Boilermakers are also to be feared because they have multiple players who can perform the most fundamental task in the sport: shooting the basketball. Purdue entered the Maryland game boasting six players who make more than a third of their threes. The Boilermakers then knocked down 9 of 20 against the Terps. That’s lethal.

It’s easy to be wowed by Purdue’s exceptional ball movement, which frequently flows through Edey in the post, often multiple times in a single possession. It appears endless and almost always leads to an open shot. But open shots don’t make themselves. Someone’s got to knock them down.

So does good ball movement make better shooters? Or do the Boilermakers just have a bunch of marksmen around a dominant big man?

“It’s both,” Purdue Coach Matt Painter said. “I mean, you’ve got to have skill when you’re with someone like [Edey].”

Shooting is, of course, a skill. It should be coached and practiced, but there are also some players who just have it. Do the Terps have anyone who qualifies? Senior guard Jahmir Young, who returned to the lineup after battling an illness, can shoot, and at times he appears to be the Terps’ only offensive hope. In scoring 26 against Purdue, Young made 12 of 23 shots. The rest of the Terrapins went — close your eyes — 9 for 40. That’s 22.5 percent. That won’t cut it.

“We missed seven wide-open threes in the first half,” Willard said. “So I don’t know how much more we can do when you get a wide-open shot. I mean, I’ll try to put a play in to get a wide-, wide-, wide-open shot. Maybe that will help out.”

Facetiousness aside, the Terps’ season kind of hangs on this issue. Kaiser is a good example. He was recruited as — you guessed it — a shooter. “Jamie’s a great shooter,” Willard said. Yet after making 2 of 6 threes against Purdue, he’s 13 for 56 from deep on the year — 23.2 percent.

It can be a complex equation to get a skill that a player inherently has to come out when it actually matters.

“This is the first time he’s had to play defense,” Willard said. “The first time he’s had to box out, the first time he’s doing all this other stuff. Then you put the magnitude of the crowd at the games and playing against the number one team in the country for the first time in his career. Now he gets an open look. He just hasn’t been through it. You know, I can make a four-footer on the practice green all day long. When you put me in the member-guest, I’m missing it.”

It’s January. The Terps aren’t on the practice green. They’re not even in the member-guest. The tour schedule has started. They have to make those four-footers, some of the eight-footers and some bombs.

“We’ll definitely be a different team in February,” Willard said.

Trust him. But also know that for that to happen, someone — sorry, a few Terrapins — will have to start putting the ball in the basket more confidently and consistently. Basketball can be analyzed and broken down in all manner of ways. For the Terrapins, don’t overlook the most basic: Can they get the ball to go through the hoop?