TERPS!

So now it comes down to the Terps. After a whale of a season last year that included winning the ACC regular season and seeing Greivis win the ACC Player of the Year thanks to a late season surge. Jordan Williams became dominant, Eric Hayes finished out his career as a long distance assassin, and Sean Mosley continued to establish himself as a team leader.

But this season is different. Gone are Vasquez and Hayes, as well as Landon Milbourne. The team will now belong to Mosley and Williams which is at least a little odd considering that the other three starting spots will all likely be filled (at least at first) by seniors with prior starting experience in Dino Gregory, Adrian Bowie, and Cliff Tucker. While their performance and leadership will be crucial to the season's outcome, it seems clear that if the Terps are to make any noise whatsoever in the ACC, it will likely be because Williams and Mosley play at an all-conference level. But without further adieu, a preview!

STARTING FIVE:

PG - Adrian Bowie (aka Big Sexy, Anthony Bowie): Bowie is not the prototypical point guard by any stretch, so although I've been a big fan of his since his arrival in College Park, I'll be more than a little bit hesitant to have him running the show. He's a solid ballhandler and penetrator, as well as a great finisher around the basket, but he hasn't shown nearly the court awareness necessary to run the show the way a Vasquez or Hayes did. His three point shot has been wildly inconsistent - sometimes Bowie hits a bunch in a row while other times he seemingly launches for games at a time without having a prayer of hitting one. With the team's top shooters moving on, it would be nice for him to be at least a bit more consistent in that area.

SG - Sean Mosley (aka Sugar Sean, Bonecrusher): Mosley was perhaps the team's most touted signing since at least the now-infamous Mike Jones recruiting class, and represented a landmark recruiting win for a team that has had so little success in recruiting Baltimore stars since the end of the Bob Wade era. Mosley is making good on all the potential that folks saw in him during his time at Saint Frances Academy and has shown himself to be a prototypical "Gary Williams player". Best described as "heady", at least in basketball cliches, Mosley was one of the most efficient shooters from the field in the country while doing all the dirty work on defense and the glass. Despite being the second leading scorer in Maryland HS history, he still needs to show that he can be a go-to scorer, but there's no doubt that his contributions in every area of the game will make him one of the top dozen or so players in the conference this season.

SF - Cliff Tucker (): Tucker has had an odd career, ranging from hero (game winning three against GT) to Carolina killer to Gary's doghouse. Tucker mixes equal measures of frustrating WTF moments with moments of sick athleticism and tantalizing skill. There is no doubt that he's capable of scoring in bunches, but can he do it consistently (there's that word again)? He'll also have to put forth maximum effort on defense to avoid finding himself with reduced minutes again. To his credit, strength coach Paul Ricci singled him out as being perhaps THE hardest worker on the team in the offseason. And if you've seen the way the Terps are looking swole, that's a pretty good compliment. Tucker is the X-Factor this season.

PF - Dino Gregory: Dino is an outstanding defender, good at both position defense and shot-blocking. He can hit a mid-range jumper and became a lights out FT shooter last season. On the other hand, he averaged about 4 and 3 in 20 minutes a game last season, so his production left quite a bit to be desired. The team has had trouble rebounding for years, and even with Jordan Williams dominating the glass, the Gregory/Milbourne combo at the 4 was not strong in that area at all. Dino is a pretty huge guy physically now, even if he doesn't have a height adavantage over many of his competitors. He's going to have to do better on the boards this year for the team to reach its potential. If he could average 6 or 7 boards while continuing to be very good defensively, he's going to be a valuable piece even with a lack of scoring.

C - Jordan Williams (JWOWW, Wooden Award Candidate Jordan Williams): When did you know? Was it when he had 19 and 12 against a top 5 Villanova team in December? Was it when he came close to 20/20 against Houston in the NCAA Tournament? Was it when he and Greivis were the only players to show up in a crucial come-from-behind win at North Carolina State? Whenever it was, we were all witnesses to the birth of the animal that is Jordan Fucking Williams. He's already the best inside player the team has had since Lonny Baxter, and for most folks, not at least matching Baxter's career will be a disappointment. He's already a Wooden Award candidate, and for most people, not making an All-America team as an upperclassmen will be a bit of a disappointment. Pretty heady stuff for a guy who was not a consensus top 100 player coming out of high school. Bottom line - We all know Jordan is a motherfucking monster, now let's have some fun and see how high the ceiling is for him.

BENCH:

G - Pe'shon Howard (Black Greivis): Pe'shon took Greivis' number. Some people (Bob) may see that as something that shouldn't have happened, but Howard has swag. He showed it off in the first scrimmage at Maryland Madness, and I'm confident we'll see more of that. He's also completely cut for a freshman and has big-game experience from play against and with so many stars at Oak Hill Academy so I have a lot of confidence that he's going to contribute right from the jump. (As a side note, it's interesting how so many of our PGs played big-time hoops before coming to MD - Duane Simpkins went to Dematha, Pe'shon and Blake went to Oak Hill, Greivis played for Montrose, and Terrell Stokes played for Simon Gratz, a nationall ranked Philly team that also featured Rasheed Wallace around the same time. Only John Gilchrist broke the mold, really.)

F- James Padgett (Inspector Padgett) - Apparently the reason that Padgett's minutes were so infrequent during the latter part of last season was not because Gary didn't trust him, but rather because he had some stomach ailment which was apparently never mentioned last season so far as I can recall. This year Padgett will play, and almost certainly will play 20+ minutes. He showed a lot of positives last year - post moves and rebounding especially - so it's not a stretch to see him becoming a very valuable bench contributor, if not more. Who knows how good he can be, but with a frontcourt that is thin on depth and experience after Jordan and Dino, Padgett is going to play a crucial role this season.

G - Terrell Stoglin: So in my mind, not only have I made Pe'shon the heir apparent to Greivis, but Stoglin is the new Hayes. He committed first before being passed on the depth chart (my assumption) before getting here. He's supposed to be a better shooter and has more of a rep of a scorer. He's also probably though of more as a combo guard, which does kind of reverse the roles in that Hayes was the pure PG coming while Greivis was the man of many positions (and to some extent that held true even through their four years). My gut says that Stoglin will find himself riding the bench behind all of the guards on the team, but all he has to do to play big minutes is to beat out Howard for the starting PG spot. If he is the better shooter, that could help him see minutes as the team will be weak in that area.

G/F - Mike Parker (Get Money): Is that nickname gonna stick? Who knows, but I do know that he is the Terps most highly touted recruit, and really, after losing Terrence Ross, he's the only touted recruit remaining from another once-promising class that ended up pretty weak on paper. Parker is a really long athlete, and for whatever reason, since I'm pre-assigning career paths to incoming players, I have him marked down as the next Laron Profit. If he can score a few points, he'll be a valuable addition to the rotation.

F - Berend Weijs (Flying Dutchman) - More comparisons - Boom. Ok, that may be heresy, but hear me out. Both were lightly regarded JuCo prospects and...uh, I've seen Boom and Weijs post on each others' facebooks. So there's that. Weijs averaged over four blocks per game so I'm expecting him to come in as the second big off the bench and just fly around, block shots, and do some dirty work. He's gained 15 pounds since coming to campus, but he's still only at 205 so he needs to get taller. But if he can off the bench and just block shots and play some D, that works. It's not like our most recent successful teams have gotten much production out of their fourth big man (WillBo, anyone?)

F - Haukur Pallson (Hawk, Gunnar Stahl): This seemed like an odd signing at the time. The Terps picked up Pallson late in the recruiting year even though they were well stocked in the backcourt. On the surface, Hawk doesn't seem like a world beater, putting up moderate numbers for a loaded high school team. Still, it would seem that if Gary offered him, he saw something in his play. Not that Gary hasn't been wrong in recent years with recruiting. I don't expect much from the Hawk this season, let's just say that.

F - Ashton Pankey: It's never good when a big man injures their foot before even coming to college. There was talk of a redshirt, but that doesn't seem to be a concern at this point as Pankey is healthy enough to play already. Still, I'd be moderately surprised if he sees significant minutes once we get to conference play.