Every year Fred loses a stinkhole of a game. I'm fairly certain he does this on purpose to get the players attention.
He let's them play their shoddy defense and poor shot selection offense until they lose. Then he huddles them up and says that was fun but are you guys ready to play some Hoiball now.
Strangely, I had almost this same thought when I woke up this morning. It seemed last night like he didn't call too many set plays or change defense to try and break Maryland's rhythm, and kind of just let the guys try to play through it. I'm sure he saw way more than we all saw, but it sure looked like a collection of individuals instead of a team, which does make sense with this many new guys and former leaders trying to figure out where they fit in the pecking order here. BDJ is a phenomenal athlete, and we have no reason to believe Fred won't get him to buy in eventually. Nader has played a few minutes in 2 games in 2 years. Monte had a rough night, but are we really going to start worrying about him? Hogue was pressing and had a bad game. I'm not saying Fred wanted us to lose, but maybe he wanted to make the point about buying in, playing as a team, and show what can happen if they don't? Because a lesson learned from this game would mean a whole lot more than a November loss in a neutral-court game.