What now Gary?

So Maryland just lost to Miami 78-63. It was closer than that, and Miami foul shots made that score look worse, but anyone watching the game knows that Miami was the better team. The bench managed an impressive 4 whole points today, all coming from Jerome Burney, who hasn’t played in forever. James Gist was against disappointing, getting himself in foul trouble, and only shooting 3 of 11 from the field. Hayes was hot from three in the first half, but took only one in the second half. Milbourne was hot from three for a short period, but went 3 for 8, giving up valuable possessions. Gary continues to press, but i don’t understand how you can press for a significant portion of them game and only come up with 5 total turnovers, and I don’t think any of them were because of the press. This team had heart a month ago when it went on its run, but now it looks no different from the team that lost to American. It’s just so sad to watch this team play. They can’t consistently make shots, and on defense they seem to pray for the other team to miss a shot and have a rebound head towards a terps player.

The RPI didn’t drop much as Miami was ranked high and it was a road game, however Wake Forest and Virginia Tech have now passed us. A week ago this team was in 3rd place in the conference, now we are half a game ahead of 7th place. Wake Forest next week is now a tough game. Clemson we knew would be tough, and Virginia will show up to play Maryland. Do the Terps win any of these games, who knows? I’m not even gonna speculate about the NCAA picture at this moment, but Maryland is now in big trouble. My question is will Maryland even host an NIT game since the women’s NCAA tournament is being hosted at College Park. It would be a fitting way to close out this season with NIT games on the road.

VT makes me want to throw up….

Why can’t Gary get his teams to play well against poor opponents? Why does James Gist decide to only score seven points when we really need him? Why does Eric Hayes look like a player with only walk-on ability lately? I wish I had the answer to the questions but I don’t.

This was an absolute horrendous loss for the Terps. With Clemson losing tuesday, it was all set up for Maryland to grab a solid hold of 3rd place in the league; and what did they do? they blew it. To make matters worse, Miami beat Duke Wednesday too, giving them life, and making them a bubble team for the tournament again. If Maryland goes down to Miami and losses, they are in serious, serious trouble. Maryland saw its RPI drop 11 places with their loss to VT. They will probably drop from being a solid tournament team in most projections to a bubble team. If Maryland can stop the flood gates from completely opening they will be fine, but this loss is very bad for them; a loss at home to a struggling ACC school is not something you want on your resume. What makes this game sting more is we lost to VT for the 3rd straight time. Saturday we face a Miami school that beat us twice last year. Maybe ACC expansion was a bad idea. We are 6-2 against the old ACC, and 1-3 against former Big East schools this year. This team needs to figure something out between now and Saturday, because another performance like that, and we can look forward to a couple of NIT games.

The Week that was…and the week that is

A lot has happened since I last posted, so here is a roundup, starting first with the women…

Brenda Frese gave birth to healthy baby boys Sunday morning, and how did the team react? They went down to Duke without her and won 76-69 completing a season sweep of the blue devils for the first time in years. Despite 24 turnovers, the terps managed to play a pretty good game overall and never trailed after the opening minutes. Also, 75 of their 76 points came from Toliver, Harper, Langhorne, and Coleman, with Strickland adding 1 on a free throw. Also check these minutes-played out. Toliver, Coleman, and Langhorne each played 38 minutes, with Harper coming in at 36. This brings about a few question. First, how bad is our bench that they play so little? Second, How do you only beat a team by 7 if your 4 studs play almost the entire game. I wish we would play the bench more, especially Lyons and Mingo just to get them experience, but if the team isn’t in foul trouble, and the starters have the conditioning to play +35 minutes a game, then you might as well let them. Its not that an 7 point win at Duke is a bad thing, it just concerns me that with your 4 top players playing so much of the game, how you only win by 7 when Duke has two bench players over 20 minutes. Duke had 54 bench minutes compared to Maryland’s 24. Its just something to think about down the road. The ladies have two games remaining, at home against FSU, and on the road at N.C. State. They should win these games and end the season 13-1 in the ACC, most likely getting a number 2 seed in the ACC tournament. What will be interesting is to see who gets the three seed. Duke is not a shoe in for it, and with a game remaining against UNC for Duke, it is very possible UVA may sneak up and take the 3rd seed. Onto the men….

They completed last week off beating FSU 82-72. After a sluggish first half, the team came out storming in the second half, lead by Vasquez who hit three 3’s in a minute and a half span. Maryland now finds itself in a tie for 3rd place in the conference with a 7-4 record. They cannot afford to become lazy though and begin dropping games. The ACC has a bad reputation this year and will likely only see 4 teams make the NCAA, 5 if they are lucky. Maryland’s RPI continues to sit in the low 50’s (51 at this moment) which is a little low in terms of RPI for an at large team usually. However, the way Maryland has turned its season around, they should be able to sneak in with a lower than average RPI, as long as they continue to win games. Maryland hosts VT Wednesday and goes on the road to face Miami Saturday. These are both games Maryland should win, and I also think they will have the motivation to play these sub 500 schools. VT beat MD earlier in the year 66-67. Maryland had the game won and blew it. Maryland is out for revenge (Greivis even said so himself in an interview) and I expect the terps to be pumped up and deliver. As long as Deron Washington doesn’t get confidence, and Vassallo doesn’t get three point happy, I like our chances. Jeff Allen is a force down low, but Gist and Boom should be able to stop him. Next the team is off to Miami. There is no reason Maryland should lose this game. Miami has dropped off since starting the season hot; kinda in similar fashion to what clemson did last year. But also in similar fashion to what Clemson did to us a few years ago, Miami has had Maryland’s hand of late despite their lack of talent compared to Maryland. Miami came to comcast and beat Maryland last year, and then as the 12 seed in the ACC tournament, they knocked out 5 seeded Maryland in the first round of action. This sums up to another revenge game. This is their only shot at Miami this year, and I think the team wants to capture the win.

It is important to Maryland to finish in the top 4 in the league and secure the bye in the first round of the ACC tournament. It simply looks better to win and get the bye, then to have to play a Thursday game at the tournament. UNC and Duke will take the top two seeds. Clemson and Maryland are battling for the 3rd and 4th seeds, but after Wake’s stunning upset of Duke, Maryland needs to watch out. The way I see it, Maryland can still afford to lose to Clemson, as well as one other league game. this would result in a 10-6 league record, and most likely a 4th place finish. However, you can never be so sure, so you better win all of the games that you can. In terms of important RPI games, beating Miami, Clemson and Wake Forest will improve their numbers the best in hopes of getting a higher seed in the NCAAs.

Post Duke Thoughts

Well, its always disappointing to lose, and losing to Duke makes it even worse. But a 65-77 loss at the #2 team in the country isn’t a terrible thing. The unfortunate part about the game was that with about 8 minutes to go, the score was 55-57 in favor of Duke, almost erasing a 16 point deficit. Maryland had a few opportunities to tie the game or take the lead, but went cold. Duke was then able to pull away and any chances of an upset were over.

Looking at the stat sheet, Duke’s shooting really stands out. They were 12/25 from three, and 11/33 from two. That’s right, they shot 48% from three, and 33% from two. I can’t stop staring at that statistic. It was an incredible performance by Duke, to shot 48% from three in 25 attempts, and that is difficult for anyone to overcome, especially a Maryland team that isn’t strong at shooting the three. But it also seems strange how poorly Duke shot from 2, and i guess you can credit that to whatever you want, good defense, or cold shooting from duke inside. Even more interesting is that Duke was 3/4 from two in the final 4 shoots. Without these shots, Duke’s two point percentage drops to 27%. My point is, without even considering how Maryland played offensively, Duke won this game thanks to the three ball. There is nothing wrong with that, because that is how Duke is winning this year, but shooting near 50% from three is important to this team, and its something they can do. I am not upset at our team for poor three point defense, Duke can shoot the three, and there is very little we can do about it.

Maryland’s offense was disappointing to say the least. Unfortunately, none of our shots seemed to fall in the 1st half, and Gist was not heard of besides his one dunk in the second half. 9 points from Gist will not cut it against Duke. Osby had a pretty solid game, scoring 13, and Vasquez scored 25, but besides that, nothing was happening for the offense. Eric Hayes had a disappointing game, as did Landon Milbourne. It looked as if the close man-to-man defense that Duke ran really bothered them. There was simply not enough offensive fire from the team as a whole to compete with Duke. What is done is done, but it is always a disappointment when you play a close game and know that you could have performed better and maybe won.

Like I said in my last post, I still think the loss does not hurt us. It certainly does not help us, but it does not hurt. Maryland has a pretty favorable schedule from here out. Their toughest game is the home finale against Clemson. Besides that game, Maryland should be able to win the 5 other conference games. If we assume losses to Clemson, and one of the other 5 games, that will result in a 10-6 conference record, and either 3rd or 4th place in the league. That is enough to get this team into the tournament. Maryland is still in the driver’s seat and controls its own destiny, and I think this team will make the NCAA tournament no questions asked. They are a good team, and a less than stellar showing at Duke shouldn’t take away from that.

Lastly, a quick look at real time rpi shows Maryland actually jumped up to #52 from #56(as of when i wrote this) following the loss to Duke, so any worries about a severe drop following a Duke loss were for nothing. This is a good team, and there is no need to panic over a loss to Duke.

Bring on Duke

Well the men won their 4 games in between their two duke games, and are in 3rd place in the conference with a 6-3 conference record. The terps have proven they are a dominant ACC school. While I do not think they are one of the top 2 ACC schools, which i believe to be UNC and Duke, I certainly think they are in a fight with Clemson to determine the 3rd and 4th best ACC schools. Therefore, in the long run, while it would be nice to win at Duke, this certainly is not even close to a must win game for the terps anymore. By taking care of their business against the rest of the league, another loss to Duke shouldn’t push the Terps out of the NCAA tournament, which many experts now predict Maryland will make. Now, a win will certainly only help Maryland’s cause, and prove they are 100% for real, but my point is, don’t expect a win tomorrow, and don’t feel that the team is in major trouble if they do not get the win. The terps are doing what they need to do against the rest of the ACC for this game to not matter too much for them. It’s the Clemson game later in the season that will be the big game for the terps.

Now, what do the terps need to do in order to take out Duke? First, they need to get significant production from Gist and Boom. Those two provided 46 points in the earlier loss to Duke. Maryland has a huge size advantage over Duke, and they need to use this to get lots of inside points, and grab rebounds. They won the rebound battle in the earlier game 35-28, and they need to match that, or do even better to have a chance to knock off Duke. Maryland also needs to contain Nelson and Henderson on Duke if they want a shot at winning. Those two combined for 50 points in the previous meeting. This cannot happen if the Terps are going to win.

One last thing to consider is how poorly Singler, Paulus, Scheyer, and Thomas played in the earlier meeting. You can’t bank on this happening again, especially with Duke at home, but in order for the Terps to upset the number 2 team in the country, we are gonna need some luck. I would say you need at least half of the Duke players I have mentioned to have poor games for the terps to even have a chance. Duke can shoot well, but only Nelson, Henderson, and Smith were able to shoot against us last time, yet Duke scored 93 points. We are gonna need a strong defensive output, combined with cold shooting from Duke in order to win this game. As much as I hate to say it, Duke is a good team this year. I will be shocked if we pull off the victory at Duke, even as hot as we have been playing. But then again, the team shocked me against UNC, so there is no reason they can’t do it again. UNC shot 38% against us and scored 82 points; we need a similar stat if we want to beat Duke. Just remember, a loss to Duke right now, is not the end of the world, or the season for Maryland.

2008 Football Schedule Released

The ACC has released the football schedules for the 2008 season. It looks like a favorable schedule for the Terps. All four home ACC games are very winnable games. Clemson and VT on the road will be tough, but UVA and BC should not be too bad. The schedule also includes a visit from Pac-10 participant Cal, and a visit from I-AA national champion runner-up Delaware. It is way to early to predict how we will fair, but a 10-2 season with a 6-2 ACC record is very possible if the team plays up to its abilities. I’ll talk more about football following the basketball season. Here is the schedule.

Aug. 30 Delaware
Sept. 6 @ Middle Tennessee St.
Sept. 13 California
Sept. 20 Eastern Michigan
Sept. 27 @ Clemson
Oct. 4 @ Virginia
Oct. 11 Open
Oct. 18 Wake Forest
Oct. 25 NC State
Nov. 1 Open
Nov. 6 @ Virginia Tech (Thursday night game)
Nov. 15 North Carolina
Nov. 22 Florida State
Nov. 29 @ Boston College

Men on a roll…Doron to be honored

Lets start with the ladies. Following their OT loss to UNC almost 2 weeks ago, the women have won their past two games, including an OT victory at VT which found the ladies down 2-22 early in the game. The game was on FSN and I was able to watch it, and boy did they look bad at the beginning. They had turnover problems that were worse than what we saw from the men earlier this year, and it looked like they were going to be embarrassed by a team with an 0-7 ACC record. Well, they pulled it together and tied the game for the first time at the end of regulation, and took their first lead of the game 2 mins into overtime. I guess you can judge for yourself whether or not that was an embarrassing game, but there is no question that they need to play a better game Friday night against Virginia if they want to win. Virginia is 17-5 (5-1) but has yet to play the the tougher ACC schools besides their loss to Maryland in Charlottesville. They played very well against Maryland in their previous meeting and the Terps did not pull away until the final six minutes of that game. I like to think the Terps shouldn’t have much of a problem with Virginia at home, and after their terrible start in VT, I am sure they were pushed hard in practice this week. Shay Doron will be honored at halftime of this game with her jersey being retired. She was the first of many prized recruits Brenda Frese was able to get to come to College Park and really started the quick turnaround at Maryland which brought home a National Championship in 2006.

Now for the men. Unfortunately, I had a meeting at 7, and didn’t feel like going to the bars halfway through the game as my dorm does not get ESPNU, so i was forced to listen to the second half on the radio, and nothing against Mr. Holliday, but I like watching my games, and it makes my analysis harder to do when I don’t get to SEE the game. Anywho, Gist and Greivis both had monster games scoring 48 of the team’s 70 points and Hayes hit a crucial three in the final minute to seal the deal for Maryland at BC. If the Terps win Saturday against N.C. State, they will have survived a critical 4 game portion of their schedule between the two Duke games, where they needed at least three wins and ended up winning all four. N.C. State has looked good at times, and terrible at other times. They come in with a 15-7 record, and are 4-4 in the ACC. Their ACC wins are against Miami, Florida State, Wake Forest, and Virginia Tech. These are all average ACC schools, and losses to GT and Clemson tell me they struggle when the competition gets tougher. They win the games they should, and lose the games they should. Nonetheless, there a few players to watch out for. Hickson and Grant provide a lot of scoring for the team. 6th man/sometime starter Ben McCauley is the guy I would watch out for. He doesn’t score a ton, but does all the right things for this team, and if you watched the Wake/N.C. State game last week, you saw him win the game for State single-handed, literally. The Terps are playing well though, and are at home. State tends to struggle on the road, and with the way we are playing, I expect to see Gary Williams pick up win #601 Saturday night.

Men look strong in Atlanta

The final score may have been 88-86, and free throws were needed to secure the victory, but the Men look at times to be a great a basketball team and easily the 3rd best in the conference. All they have to do is avoid the 5-10 minute stretch they always get into during games where they look like the worst team in the ACC.

Two main things stuck out to me in this game. The first was the play of Landon Milbourne. He played 32 mins and scored 16 points, making him the second leading scorer behind Boom for this game. He nailed two three-pointers during the game in pivotal spots for the Terps. Earlier this season Milbourne was never really a factor in the offense and you never expected him to do much. However, in the past 7 games, he has scored in double digits 5 times. In his prior 14 games, he scored in double digits 5 times total, and all of those were either 10 or 11 point outings. Landon being able to score and provide help on the offensive end is huge for this team not only this year, but next year. With Gist and Boom graduating, Landon will be looked upon to score even more next season as Gary molds new front court players into the lineup. It also cannot be forgotten that he had two huge offensive rebounds and put backs at the end of the UVA game to seal the deal to that victory. Landon is stepping up big time and his future looks very promising.

The second thing that stuck out to me is a big negative. When Gist and Boom get into foul trouble, or just need a breather, we have nobody that can come in and contribute to the offense even a little. Of course there will be a drop off from Gist or Boom to a bench forward, but it is ridiculous how bad the front court bench players have been playing. Shane Walker has been playing a bit lately, and in my opinion has done the best of late of any of the front court bench players, his problem is he likes to foul people; against GT he had 3 fouls in 5 minutes. Dave Neal has been playing a lot too. His problem is that his body type can just not compete with ACC talent. He is not tall enough to grab rebounds, and unless he is left wide open, helps very little offensively. The last of the bench forwards to play of late is Braxton Dupree, but despite his size, has been having lots of trouble holding onto rebounds he should get, and also does little offensively. Braxton should be doing better, but for some reason he is struggling. I don’t know if he is nervous or what, but Gary needs to figure out what his problem is and fix it. A more competitive Braxton off the bench is going to be critical for this team to succeed. Dave Neal is not the answer when Gist or Osby need a breather, but if Braxton is not effective, Gary apparently has no choice but to plug the hole with Dave. It is very important for this team to have Braxton start playing tough inside, not only for this season, but for the future when he will probably start following the graduation of Gist and Boom.

Overall, it was a good week for the Terps who picked up two ACC wins following the loss to Duke. Boston College is up next, followed after by a home game against N.C. State. Pick up those two games, and the Terps look like a NCAA bound squad.

Recruiting News and GT Game Notes

I usually don’t like to talk about recruiting as I don’t know much about it besides what i read online, but this was a big day for the Terps so I thought I would touch on it. First to football.

WR Kenny Tate committed to Maryland Thursday night, and has been ranked as high as the 16th best WR in this year’s national recruiting class. Combined with the commitments of WR Kevin Dorsey and Kerry Boykins, both top 100 WR prospects, the Terps bring in an amazing WR recruiting class. If the team finds a quarterback who can use these three new weapons in the next 5 years(if they redshirt), we could be looking at a very potent offense. I will blog more on football recruiting as we get closer to the spring game in April.

On to basketball. News has surfaced that JuCo forward Ken Bowman has been offered a scholarship for next season and has accepted it. The reason why this is big news is because this would be their 4th scholarship player to sign for next year including JuCo Bobby Maze, Sean Mosley, and Gus Gilchrist. With the terps not using one of their 13 scholarships this year, and Gist and Osby being the only scholarship players to graduate ( McAlpin is not a scholarship player) following this season, this only adds up to 3 available scholarships for 4 players. Something fishy is going on. Many things could be happening. One possible solution is that Gus Gilchrist will not be allowed to play next year because he committed to Virginia Tech before deciding to come to Maryland. If that is not the answer, than somebody is leaving the team; either by transfer, graduated early, or being kicked off the team.

Now this is all speculation on my part, but these are some of my thoughts on what may be happening. If someone is graduating early, it would probably be Neal, although I have heard nothing about this. Another possibility is that his shoulder is more injured than we know and he has decided to quit following the season. In terms of a player transferring I would look towards Burney or Gregory as they have sat out the longest period of time since last playing(note: Pearman has not played often this year, but to the best of my knowledge he is a walkon). Gregory last saw action against Wake on Jan. 15th and has not seen significant minutes since Jan. 8th against Holy Cross. You have to go all the way back to the Jan. 2nd game against Savannah State for the last time Burney played. Again, this is just speculation on my part, but I would look towards Burney being the opening of this scholarship, and if not him Neal. For those of you who think Vasquez may be thinking Pro, he is not ready yet, and I am pretty sure he knows it.

Now for a quick preview of Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets are 10-9, 3-3 in the ACC, and will have been off for a week following their victory against Virginia on Sunday. They lost a lot of close games out of conference, including a 4 point loss at #15 Indiana and a 5 point loss against #3 Kansas. They also almost upset then #1 UNC right before the Terps knocked off UNC, losing to them 82-83. The Jackets also come into this game with a 3 game winning streak including VT, N.C. State, and UVA. The big three players to watch out for are seniors Jeremis Smith and Anthony Morrow, as well as Junior Lewis Clinch. Matt Causey has also been on fire for them lately. None of this should matter though if the Terps play their game. Now I wouldn’t expect another 3 point outburst from Hayes and Vasquez, but timly shots by them, as well as pounding it inside to Gist and Osby should get it done at Georgia Tech. This team showed us something by playing well against Virginia following a tough loss against Duke. I think this team gets it, and knows what it must do to win. They have been playing great of late and the only criticism I can find for them is lack of bench points. If they can get more points off the bench, it will only help their chances at making a nice run and making the NCAAs. The starters are going to have off nights sometimes, and we need our bench players to pick up their game a bit.

Duke and Virginia Thoughts

Well I think we were all disappointed Maryland wasn’t able to get the job done against Duke, but we must take away some positives from the game. We proved that the UNC upset was no fluke, this team can be competitive with almost anyone as long as they want to be. The team just came out flat at the beginning of the second half, and it was apparent Duke was set to not lose this game. Unlike the Boston College game, I think this was a legitimate loss. Yeah, some calls by the refs were bad, but it went both ways, unlike the Boston College game where I am convinced we would have won had the refs called a better game. Duke had more fight in them and they were deeper. Smith off of the bench proved to be the X-factor for Duke as Paulus was in foul trouble all night, and Henderson could not miss a shot if he tried. Nelson, as always, killed us, but luckily this is the last year we have to deal with him. All in all, I am not troubled by this loss at all. Duke was the #3/4 team in the nation and we lost to them, just as most expected us to. However, we did prove we can hang with the big boys and now this team has no excuse to play flat and lose to mediocre and poor ACC teams. Speaking of mediocre and poor ACC teams, what is going on with Virginia?

UVA is 11-7 overall, but a dismal 1-4 in the ACC. Their only win was at home against BC, while their losses including games against Duke, VT, Florida State, and Georgia Tech. Virginia was picked to finish 5th in this year’s ACC media preseason poll, and so far are not living up to that prediction at all. Unfortunately, I have not gotten a chance to see UVA play yet this year, but looking at their schedule, they had an impressive 3-point victory at #17 Arizona earlier in the season. However, this is the highlight of their out of conference schedule, losing to middle of the pack Big East schools Seton Hall and Syracuse at home and getting clobbered by a good Xavier team on the road. For some reason, this team is just not gelling together as it should. Sean Singletary is still playing well, as well as senior forward Adrian Joseph, but the team is struggling to find consistent scoring anywhere else. Maryland should win this game. Maryland has proved that it is a good team, and much improved from its December version of itself. However, after two games against top 5 teams, will Maryland be able to get up for this game? Maryland has a recent history of losing to inferior opponents for no apparent reason. This should be an easy Maryland victory, but something tells me I might be very disappointed Wednesday night.