Brandon Walker for Urban Media Today
College Park, MD—Maryland’s dynamic duo of sophomore Andre Mills and senior Pharrell Payne gave the College Park crowd a preview of what could be an upper-echelon combination as they combined for 53 points Sunday afternoon to defeat West Virginia 90-81 in overtime at the XFINITY Center.
Mike McNair Jr. opened scoring for Maryland, followed by a cutback from Mouhammed Sylia for WVU. Maryland jumped to an 8-2 early advantage with baskets from Pharrell Payne and Andre Mills. WVU then went on a 7-0 run, led by baskets from Miles Sadler and Seydou Traore. The action went back and forth, including a three-pointer from the logo by Finley Bizjack as the teams tied at 14 at the Under-12 media timeout.
Sadler and Bizjack each made another three-pointer, giving WVU a six-point lead. However, Payne kept scoring in the paint to bail out a stagnant offense. WVU gained separation with back-to-back three-pointers from Bizjack, and a dunk by Adamu Seini gave the Under-8 a 12-point lead by the half.
West Virginia increased its lead to 15, 46-31, at halftime. Bizjack led WVU with 15 points, followed by Miles Somerville with 11 points. Payne led Maryland with 11 points, while Andre Mills followed with 8.
Maryland began to close the gap by forcing turnovers and easy baskets. Payne started to impose his will, and by the under-16 timeout, WVU’s lead was cut to 50-43. Maryland cut the deficit to one point and one basket with baskets from Andre Mills and Payne. WVU went back up by five after a technical foul on Buzz Williams following a questionable no-call.
Maryland finally took the lead on back-to-back three-pointers and a fast-break layup by Mills to put Maryland up 59-56 with 9:51 remaining. The game stayed nip and tuck until Mills hit a three-pointer with 3:43 remaining. Freshman Kaden House made another three-pointer with 2:38 remaining.
Bizjack answered with a transition three after a turnover, then Lorient dunked to tie the game with 12 seconds remaining and force overtime.
Mills started overtime with a three-pointer and hit another to put Maryland up by four, and Payne added an alley-oop dunk to put the Terps up by six, as they closed out the game much better in overtime than in regulation.
Maryland head coach Buzz Williams surprisingly made no adjustments to his game plan; instead, he reinforced it in postgame media and said it will help the team prepare for its last exhibition game.
“So there were no adjustments to the plan at halftime, but there was awareness of our lack of execution of that plan, and similar to what I just mentioned to them, without revealing everything, so are we the first-half team? Not talking about the scoring,” Williams said.
“I’m not talking about the result. I’m talking about the execution of the plan in the first half on both sides of the ball, and then the execution of the plan on both sides of the ball in the second half. Which group are we? Which is valuable to this next six days of work.”
Mills led all scorers with 27 points, shooting 4-for-7 from three-point range, while Payne added 26 points and 13 rebounds in his second game back from missing most of last season with a knee injury. WVU head coach Matt Hodge came away impressed after the game and foresees a big comeback season.
“I don’t know if there’s a better offensive rebounder in the country at this point than Payne. He’s certainly going to be one of the best when this season’s over. Lord willing, he’s healthy again the whole year.”
McNair scored 15 points on 3-for-5 from the three-point line. House added 10 points for Maryland.
Bizjack led WVU with 25 points on 5 for 8 on three pointers, followed by Sadler with 16 points. Somervile and Traore added 13 points apiece.
Maryland will start its season on Nov. 2 when it hosts Bucknell, while WVU will open its season at Belmont also on Nov. 2.
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