Jahmir Young boarded a team flight to the West Coast several days before Christmas battling what Maryland men’s basketball coach Kevin Willard recalled was the beginning of a cold. Despite the bug, the fifth-year point guard scored a career-high 37 points against UCLA to lift the Terrapins to a 69-60 victory at Pauley Pavilion.
The symptoms became more pronounced, however, during travel back to College Park that included a red-eye charter, and after a conversation on Christmas with Young’s mother, Willard held Maryland’s leading scorer (19.3 points per game) out of practice before electing to sit him for the most recent game, a 75-53 drubbing of Coppin State in College Park on Thursday.