Payne drops 22, leading Maryland over Alcorn State

After a tough defeat in their home opener against Georgetown last week, the Maryland Terrapins men's basketball team responded with a convincing 84-64 victory against Alcorn State yesterday evening at Xfinity Center.

Pharrel Payne continues to start hot in his Terps career, leading the way with 22 points on an efficient 8-of-10 shooting, 6-of-8 from the free throw line, and seven rebounds. He's now scored 20+ points in two of his first three games as a Terp.

Have a night, @pharrelpayne! 👏👏👏

Pharrel is averaging 20 PPG over the first three games. pic.twitter.com/zY4yWowAcl
— Maryland Men’s Basketball (@TerrapinHoops) November 12, 2025

Maryland (2-1) shot 50% from the field, went 20-of-27 from the charity stripe, and outrebounded Alcorn State (0-4) 37-25.

The Terps had three other double-digit scorers: Andre Mills scored 16 points, grabbed eight rebounds, dished out three assists, had two steals, and made three 3-pointers.

Elijah Saunders (12 points, two steals, 3-5 fg, and 6-6 ft) and Darius Adams scored 10 points.

Alcorn State's leading scorer was Jameel Morris off the bench, who scored 22 points on 9-of-12 shooting from the field and made three 3-pointers. Travis Roberts added 14, and Shane Lancaster scored 10.

Maryland scored 13 straight points for over six minutes, from the 17-minute mark to nearly the 10-minute mark in the first half, taking a 20-7 lead.

The Terps increased their lead to 19 at one point in the half, but the Braves responded strongly, outscoring the Terps 17-4 to trail only by six points at the half.

However, in the second half, the Terps opened on a 15-2 run, which helped them regain a 19-point lead that they would not relinquish the rest of the way, en route to a 20-point victory.

Maryland forced 21 turnovers, which led to 26 points. They also added 13 fast break points and scored 34 points in the paint.

Highlights of the game presented by Vanda Pharmaceutical pic.twitter.com/aovWHzRNWg
— Maryland Men’s Basketball (@TerrapinHoops) November 12, 2025

Postgame Thoughts

Coach Buzz Williams spoke about his team's big runs in the first and second half that drove their comfortable win, saying;

"I think we probably played 25 minutes the way we wanted to play. In the first 10 minutes, a lot of what we wanted to accomplish was happening on both ends of the floor. Then it drastically changed from an execution and stamina standpoint. But in the second half, I thought what was happening in the first 10 minutes was very similar, without having watched it, to the first 10 minutes of the first."

He continued summing it up that the "air started coming out of the balloon," but at the third timeout around the six-minute mark, he thought his players did a good job of closing out the game.

Coach Williams even used an analogy that his team uses, a "turkey" means three straight stops, and three baskets in a row as a "heat". He used that terminology to describe the strengths he saw in the first and second halves of his team.

Up Next:

Maryland hits the road to face Marquette at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Saturday afternoon. Tipoff begins at 2 p.m.

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