Andre Mills’ Strong Second Half Propels Him Into Bright Future

It’s 5:00 in the morning. Andre Mills is ready to go. He never hits snooze, knowing the opportunity of the day won’t wait for him to snatch it. 

Mills has been a bright spot down the stretch for the Maryland men’s basketball team. He’s stacking double-digit and 20-point games, building onto an impressive redshirt-freshman campaign.

After a slower first half to his first season in College Park, Mills fell back on the routine that had led him to so many prior successes in his basketball career.

“It’s about getting in the gym every day,” Mills said. “I wake up at 5:00 AM. It’s a routine I’ve had for years. Earlier in the season, I fell out of it. I was getting up at eight or nine, and I just felt off. I reminded myself to take that extra time to wake up in the morning, get off my phone, and focus on basketball.”

It’s the simple things that have led to his successes in his first season with the Terrapins. The life of a student-athlete is far from simple, but Mills has found a calmness amidst everything he juggles by focusing solely on the things he can control. 

“I’ve got a lot of anxiety when it comes to certain things outside of basketball,” Mills said. “Simplifying things in my brain and reminding myself that I’m only doing things I’ve done my entire life helps remind me that I don’t need to change who I am or what I do.”

Across the back half of the season, Mills has posted double-digit performances in 11 of Maryland’s last 13 games of the regular season. As the season’s progressed, he’s set and topped his career high points total on five separate occasions, including scoring 24 in a win over Iowa and 39 on the road at Northwestern, which matched Maryland’s most points by a freshman in program history.

“There are still habits I need to break, of course,” Mills said. “But this is who I am. I score, I guard, I rebound. I know I can do these things at a high level, so my focus on those things is the moral of my story.”

His words match the ones he uses in post-game press conferences. After consistent impressive performances — especially for a redshirt-freshman battling in the Big Ten — he keeps his answers simple and focused on the tasks at hand. 

"Don't think,” he said after a win over Washington. “Just make it. I just want to make the plays we need to win."

He’s a true competitor, the latest from a family of athletes. Growing up, Mills and his kin were exposed to just about every sport imaginable, but never with any pressure to put one over another. Even still, each family member before him seemed to pick one path, making his decision to pursue basketball a unique one. 

“My family was very competitive,” Mills said. “Even the women in our family were always around athletes and loved sports. The competitiveness of our family is really a tradition of sorts. Me routing off to basketball was different than everybody else, but that’s really the only difference. I wanted to be different.”

Mills was putting up monster stats in his freshman year of high school on the football team, racking up receiving yards and clamping wideouts at cornerback. But one game, he went to jam a receiver and snapped his finger.

“I still finished the game,” Mills said. “But once the doctors put me in a cast, I realized I needed to focus on basketball and my goal of playing varsity.”

His time at Brimmer and May High School caught the attention of Buzz Williams, who recruited Mills to play for him at Texas A&M. He used a redshirt in his freshman year, but followed Williams to College Park, chasing the chance to play in the Big Ten. 

“I love Andre,” Williams said. “I know all his people. His people have given me permission to coach him as coaches used to coach. The intent of my heart toward Andre is always in the right place. My tone is not always the best, but it’s in a language he understands.”

It’s a language that all ballplayers know: competition. Mills is one of the hardest-working guys on the floor, striving to become the player both he and Williams know he can be.

His growth this season has been undeniable. Ahead of Senior Day, seasoned veteran Elijah Saunders spoke of the areas he’s seen Mills excel in as a player and a person.

“A lot of guys, you start to see them grow in the second half of conference play,” Saunders said. “When you get into the second half of the year, you feel older. I’ve started to see that confidence in Andre. His leadership has risen with his game, and I’m really impressed with him.”

Off the court, Mills can be found playing video games or camped on the couch, tuned into his favorite brand of TV: reality shows. Mills and the team bonded over the summer watching the hit series Love Island, a show that can always capture his attention. 

“It’s definitely a little reset,” Mills said. “It’s a calm little unwind from the outside world and a common reset.”

In a season that has seen so much change, both in the offseason and throughout the schedule, one thing has been a constant - working towards making progress and embracing a path of learning and development. Perhaps no player embodies this more than Mills.

“I just want to keep getting better every day,” Mills said. “I only want to worry about the things that impact winning. It’s all coming together, and it’s going to lead to a lot of winning real soon.