Prospect Profile: Will Maher (2020)
Watching Will Maher play basketball for the Mead Mavericks is like watching a clone of his older brother James Maher, who is currently a sophomore point guard at Morningside College in Iowa. The thing is, Will might end up being…
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Continue ReadingWatching Will Maher play basketball for the Mead Mavericks is like watching a clone of his older brother James Maher, who is currently a sophomore point guard at Morningside College in Iowa.
The thing is, Will might end up being even better than James.
“James was awesome to coach and Will is the same,” Mead head coach Darin Reese said. “He’s just a kid that all coaches want on their team. He’s tough and he has leadership qualities. You trust him with the basketball, trust him to knock down a shot and he can really handle the basketball. He’s even further along as a junior than James was, especially in his consistency with the shot.”
An intelligent pure point guard who can play with pace while remaining under control and seeing the floor, Maher shares similar traits that made his older brother such a strong floor general for the Mavericks. So far in his junior season, Maher is averaging 10.3 points, 3.5 assists, 2.8 rebounds and 1.1 steals per game for the No. 10-ranked Mead boys.
At 5-foot-11, Maher isn’t very big. But he has deceptive length for a player of his size and he is extremely quick, both with his feet and with his hands. On a Mavericks team that averages 8.4 3-pointers per game, Maher leads the team in 3-point shooting at 45 percent. He has made 25 of his 56 long-range attempts and is shooting 46 percent from the floor, overall, and is a strong on-ball defender of the point guard position.
“Will is a pure point guard and he’ll have some opportunities to play when he graduates,” Reese said. “It’s going to be a smaller school, more than likely. He’s not that big but he’s just a kid that can get you into your sets play after play and handle the ball full court. He can push the ball, and that’s something we’re asking him to do a lot more this year. Depending on what system you run, he could be absolutely perfect.”
Maher is a talented ball-handler who can be called upon to knock down a shot and, like his brother, is going to end up filling a point guard role for a college team somewhere once his prep career at Mead is over.