Dave Neal Gets to Ride Up Front

because he's a good guy at sports?

Seriously, did Dave Neal just drop 17 points in 17 minutes against the #5 team in the country, on ESPN2, en route to winning the Old Spice Player of the Game? Was that a tryptophan induced hallucination?

As someone who absolutely talked TONS of shit about Dave Neal throughout the early part of the season, let me take this moment to extract my foot from my mouth and congratulate Dave "YMCA" Neal on his 27 points in the last two Terps' wins. Nice job, big man.

The Terps managed to rout Michigan State tonight by 18, even with Greivis Vasquez not playing his best game. Sure, he dished 6 dimes and grabbed a team-high 6 boards, but he also shot 5-14 from the field and played very poorly as Michigan State caught up to the Terps at the end of the first half. I am no Greivis hater, but the man needed to settle himself in the worst way for much of the game tonight.

Adrian Bowie came up huge all game, particularly in the first half, scoring 13 points in total while the other point guard, Eric Hayes, was huge with 13 points, 5 assists and 3 steals. Hayes looks a bit quicker this year and more aggressive tonight than he has in the past. The new spry Hayes can be a key asset on a contending Terps team over the next two seasons. And Adrian Bowie can shoot now (he hit three threes). His bandwagon is now filled, and I'm still in the conductor's seat (do they sit?).

I already mentioned how big the non-cyborg edition of Dave Neal was tonight, but Braxton Dupree played perhaps his best game of the season, scoring 7 points and grabbing 5 rebounds in a career high 31 minutes all while looking as active on both ends as he has at any point in his career. Michigan State is pretty damn physical (aka they play a garbage Big Ten style) so holding his own and staying on the court tonight was huge for Brax.

Now the Terps get to play another top 10 team in Gonzaga tomorrow evening, before facing either Georgetown (!!) or Tennessee on Sunday evening in either the championship or the third place game of the Old Spice Classic. Hopefully the Terps get the Hoyas because they're too scared to play us otherwise. Also - they aren't very good. They have little depth, and if the Terps got them into a track meet, Georgetown would lose.

Other stuff:

*Sean Mosley is pretty damn awesome. He might be the smartest player on the team - Dino and EHayes are also on that list, though the whole team has generally played smart ball so far this season. Twice he made plays that really don't translate well to an internets blog, one on a rebound and one on an assist. Since they won't translate well, I won't describe them. Rest assured they were real, and they were spectacular.

*Michigan State shot 44% from the FT line. LOL. That pretty much means that Tom Izzo could hire Ekene Ibekwe as his team's Shot Doctor (D.D.S) and improve them.

*Isn't Gonzaga always highly rated only to underachieve in the tournament? Why can't we win this game? Since we basically don't play anyone for the rest of the nonconference schedule after this weekend, winning one of the next two is still pretty damn important.

*Korean Durant got zero minutes tonight. I have no complaints about the rotation, but that made me sad. What's more fun than watching Korean Durant play ball?

*Is there something below the doghouse to describe where Jerome Burney is that is worse than "dog house"? Again, not that he really should have played tonight, but I feel like he might never see the court again for more than two minutes in a game.

*What is up with this bulleted list? Who do I think I am, a sportswriter? BRB, have 2 add more cliches. (The rhetorical questions were also trite and overused).

*I'm pumped. Fuck a Gonzaga.

*4-0-1 <3 Gary