Our Pets Heads are Falling Off!

At some point you learn from your mistakes.  No, not the Terps, but your humble author.  After years of jumping to call things a low point, you learn to just stop doing that for fear of what will come next.  Yesterday's lost to Boston U wasn't the first time that Maryland has lost to a team from the lowly Patriot League in Comcast Center, just the most recent.  The Terps led for just 4:00 total yesterday.  For those without the benefit of a calculator, that's just 10% of the game.  The Terps basically let a team from a low-major league come into our gym and do whatever they want.

The Terriers aren't awful, of course.  There's probably little different between them and Oregon State, other than name and that no one on BU was likely recruited to play at an ACC level.  Anyone who thought Maryland would win handily yesterday either doesn't pay attention to Maryland or doesn't pay attention to the sport in general.  BU had already given George Washington and Harvard - two teams better than Maryland - trouble and were picked to win their league.  It's a team likely to play in March, whether in the NCAA or the NIT.

In the postgame, the esteemed Coach Turgeon said the following:

We can’t score 77 at home and lose, so maybe it’s on the defensive end

77 points probably ought to be enough to win in most cases, but the game was 76 possessions.  I don't want to make too much about whether Turgeon understands tempo-free statistics, and I'm sure it's not lost on him that 57% FT shooting and a dozen and a half turnovers are bad looks, but make no mistake that the offense's inability to convert were just as damaging as giving up all those open 3s to BU.

The Terps are left with the very real possibility that they won't finish above .500 overall for the first time in over 20 years.  Even if they win their next two games (no guarantee), they'll need to get to 8-10 in the conference just to get to 16-15 for the season.  While the Seth Allen injury has hurt, that's a very bleak outlook for a program in Year 3 of a rebuild.

Suck It Lunardi

Here's the bracket.  It's happening.  Terps in.  Let's goooooooooooo.

I'll bet I do better than Lunardi.


SOUTH
--
Louisville vs Western Kentucky/NC A&T
Oklahoma vs Cal
Florida vs Akron
Saint Louis vs Bucknell
Michigan State vs Florida-Gulf Coast
Oregon vs Wichita State
Pitt vs Maryland/Middle Tennessee
Kansas vs Harvard

WEST
--
Gonzaga vs Long Island/Liberty
Cincinnati vs Illinois
North Carolina vs Boise State
Kansas State vs New Mexico State
Michigan vs Northwestern State
UNLV vs Iowa State
Memphis vs Colorado
Georgetown vs Pacific

EAST
--
Miami vs James Madison
Creighton vs Missouri
Arizona vs Villanova/Saint Mary's
Wisconsin vs Valparaiso
New Mexico vs Montana
Notre Dame vs Belmont
Butler vs Ole Miss
Ohio State vs Iona

MIDWEST
--
Indiana vs Southern
North Carolina State vs Colorado State
Oklahoma State vs Temple
Marquette vs Davidson
Syracuse vs South Dakota State
VCU vs San Diego State
UCLA vs Minnesota
Duke vs Albany

And then this happened...

Click pic for full image.

So this happened...

My art direction is slacking, so I'll repost instead. New art forthcoming, now that I remembered my password.

#BEATDUKE

Oh yeah, we did that shit.  More to come.

In the meantime, enjoy the shot chart from the Virginia game!

Howard: 2-4 (1-2, 0-1, 0-0, 1-1)
Faust: 4-9 (3-3, 1-1, 0-4, 0-1)
Wells:  5-9 (3-3, 0-1, 0-0, 2-5)
Padgett: 1-2 (1-2, 0-0, 0-0, 0-0)
Len: 3-6 (3-3, 0-2, 0-1, 0-0)
Allen: 4-8 (3-5, 1-1, 0-0, 0-2)
Aronhalt: 3-7 (1-1, 0-0, 0-2, 2-4)
Layman: 1-7 (0-1, 0-0, 1-2, 0-4)
Mitchell: 1-3 (1-3, 0-0, 0-0, 0-0)
Cleare: 3-3 (3-3, 0-0, 0-0, 0-0)

But Then I Saw This

Ed. Note: But Then I Saw This is a recurring series where stats, preferably of the tempo free variety, are used to crush the very fundamentals beliefs of the author.  This is entry the first.

The always great Luke Winn posted this handy chart in his weekly power rankings:

All year, or at least for the past month plus after it became clear that Maryland wasn't All That Good, the talking point around the internet water cooler was about the lack of a point guard and an inability to feed the Big Blue and Gold Alex Len and his counterparts in the post.  And make no mistake, I believed that was absolutely true.  Still do, to an extent, but this chart sort of puts to rest the notion that there's a ton more post feeding to do that's been left on the table.

Now you can make the case that Maryland really should be higher because Alex Len is that much of a specimen, and it doesn't ring completely hollow, but Len is a big guy without a whole mess of post moves so it's tough to swallow.  Bottom line, Maryland does feed the post.

There's also the matter of Maryland being 8th on this list in efficiency behind conference-mate Georgia Tech in both not only efficiency but number.  Now we should remember that this is all post touches, so Slim Charles and Padgett and Shaq all figure prominently as well as the guards, but it's still an ugly number.

So yeah, back to the whole, "We have a team of ten guys who turn the ball over an inordinate amount of times" to explain everything broken about our offense.

Evaluating the rest of the 2012-13 Season

In an ugly loss today to the Wahoos, the Terps simply didn't show up and got outrebounded for the first time all season. At 17-7 (5-6), it's time to re-assess the Terps. Simply put, this team is NOT what most fans (including myself) thought it was. On paper, they seem to have the talent to compete with any team in the country. But they would get absolutely run out of the gym by the likes of Michigan, Indiana, etc (yay going to the B1G!). This post will attempt to re-evaluate the Terps and look at realistic expectations for the remaining 7 games of the season.

Let's try to see things for what they are, not what we hope them to be.

What we know:

1. The only consistency the Terps have shown this year is the ability to be inconsistent. Through 11 conference games, the Terps have yet to turn in consecutive inspiring performances. What's worse, individually, the Terps are so up and down from game to game. Layman goes off at VT, then is ice cold against UVA today. Len has stretches in every game (sometimes the entire game), when he is completely invisible. Charles shows some amazing post moves, then commits silly fouls that keep him on the bench.

What we can count on so far this season are 13-18 TO each game, a different high scorer each game, and several plays every game that leave Terps fans scratching their heads wondering how the team makes the same mistakes they made in November.

2. The Terps are NOT an NCAA Tournament team this year. It's time everyone came to realize this. Whether fans blame it on their lack of experience, Mark Turgeon, or any specific other factors, it doesn't matter. All signs point to the same conclusion: Maryland will not be dancing in March, barring a string of 4-straight wins starting Thursday, Mar 14 in Greensboro.

3. The Terps lack solid leadership. On the floor, the team's lone senior coming into this year was James Padgett. With all due respect to him, he is quiet, reserved, and not the kind of player to rally the team in a pivotal moment. Enter Dez Wells. He has without a doubt stepped up as the leader of the team.  But despite his best efforts (2nd on team in PPG, 3rd in RPG, 2nd in APG), he also leads the team in TO per game with 3.0 (no other player on the team has more than 1.9). From the bench, Turgeon's lineup changes have come under fire some this season as well. Despite the obvious questions (Where was the Terps' best offensive weapon at VT, Jake Layman, during the last 8 minutes on Thursday?How does Mitchell, the team's 2nd leading rebounder at 6.2 RPG, only get 9 minutes in the game today against UVA?), the bigger questions in my mind are about improvement. Although the Terps are a very young team, how can they still be struggling with unforced turnovers, an abysmal offense, and a lack of motivation at times? These are seemingly correctable errors which are still showing up on the court 3 months later. Additionally, in terms of motivation, how do you not get your team up to play in a virtual must-win game against UVA? The Terps came out flat, sluggish, and got outhustled on their own home floor today. Good teams (read: NCAA Tournament teams) simply do NOT get outplayed that badly at home.

4. Alex Len will not be a serious contributor to an NBA team next year. That isn't to say he won't be a lottery pick based on his amazing potential. However, watching Alex struggle to assert himself against physical, but smaller, ACC forwards is mind boggling. Is this partially on the coaching staff for not calling plays to get him open? Maybe. But oftentimes, there seems to be a lack of effort and a lack of execution on Len's part as well. In any event, there's no doubt he would greatly benefit from another season in College Park, and no doubt the Terps would greatly benefit from having Len on campus for another year.



What we don't know:

1. Can Mark Turgeon improve Maryland into more than a middle-of-the-pack team? The Terps haven't been relevant in the ACC since Mr. Vasquez was walking around as BMOC. Although some question Turgeon's recruiting, I firmly believe Seth, Jake, Shaq, and Chuck are very solid with each showing high potential to improve over their years in College Park. Landing Dez Wells, Evan Smotrycz, and Logan Aronhalt was huge for Turgeon's staff as well, and hopefully Maryland can continue to keep an eye out for solid transfer players, something we didn't see during the last few years of the Gary Williams era. Although he missed out on the Harrisons, Roddy Peters is Turgeon's highest-ranked recruit ever.

But recruiting is only half the battle. On the court, can Turgeon get the most out of his players? This year's squad certainly looked talented enough to be an ACC contender this year, but inconsistency and TO's have plagued them all season (see above). Over the past two ACC seasons, I've only seen one "good win" (this year vs (14) NCST) and only one "bad loss" (last year @GT). Other than those two games, the Terps have generally beaten the teams they should've beaten (VT, Wake, Clemson, BC, etc) and lost to the teams who should've beaten them (Duke, UNC, etc). This places them very much in the middle of the pack. Terps fans aren't (and shouldn't be) satisfied with mediocrity. I'm not, by any means, insinuating that Turgeon is satisfied with mediocrity, but the million-dollar question is whether or not he can take the steps required to push Maryland back into contender status.

2. Can Roddy Peters be the PG the Terps desperately need? Despite my fellow blogger's hatred for Marshall, he keyed the Tar Heels' success in 2011 and 2012 after Ole Roy inserted him into the starting lineup in place of Larry Drew II. The Heels had plenty of weapons (including the same fellow blogger's favorite), but had no one to get them the ball and play consistent PG. Marshall made the difference as a pass-first facilitator.

The Terps will face a very similar situation next year. With many combo guards but no clear PG on this roster, can Roddy Peters put the ball where it needs to be? And will his shoulder heal in time to get him a solid off-season of practice and preparation?


Only time will tell. As always, go Terps! See you at Comcast on Saturday.

Wake Wakes Somnabulent Terps Offense

Getting Wake Forest to come to your home arena has to be one of the great get-wells in all the land.  There are teams that are bad on the road.  Maryland has only one road win all year so far.  Then there are teams that are really bad on the road.  The kind that might only win one game the entire year at an opponent's arena.  But then, when you think you've hit bottom, is Jeff Bzdzelik and whatever team he's coaching, racking up a 2-43 road record.  Literally.  That's his road record at Colorado and Wake Forest.  How he still retains employment and handsome compensation is one of the great mysteries of not only basketball but the world.

There really isn't much to say about a game where your team has the fifth highest shooting percentage in school history, and an eFG% nearing 80%, that isn't effusive praise.  The more the year goes on, the more it seems that Maryland isn't a bad three-point shooting team so much as an inconsistent one.  This was obviously one of their better days.  Logan Aronhalt seems to have regained form over the past few games, and Jake Layman is absolutely torrid since ACC play started.  Seth Allen got his groove back as well - finally - and Dez Wells and Nick Faust show some range at times.  Only Pe'shon Howard seems like a lost cause out there, but since it's been seemingly weeks since he made any type of positive play, that isn't a surprise.

SHOT CHART

Howard: (0-1, 0-0, 0-0, 0-0)
Faust: (1-2, 1-1, 0-0, 0-1)
Wells: (3-5, 0-0, 0-1, 1-1)
Padgett: (3-3, 3-3, 0-0, 0-0)
Len: (5-6, 1-1, 0-0, 0-0)
Allen: (1-3, 0-1, 0-0, 3-4)
Aronhalt: (1-1, 1-1, 0-0, 3-4)
Layman: (0-0, 0-0, 0-0, 4-6)
Mitchell: (2-3, 0-1, 0-0, 0-0)
Cleare: (2-2, 0-0, 0-0, 0-0)

ON TO BLACKSBURG

Next up is Virginia Tech, on the road.  We all know the Terps' road woes, and the Hokies have been downright feisty the last two games, taking North Carolina and Miami to the limit.  But make no mistake, this is an absolute must win for any team with aspirations of more than an NIT invitation.  The Hokies have lost 10 out of 14, and even with the ability to deploy a rotation of more realistic depth now, they're not one of the better teams in the conference.  They would have beaten North Carolina with any reasonable type of game from Erick Green (5-17 2FG) so it's certainly not ridiculous to think that VT can upset a given team at home with the nice game they had from their supporting cast.  That being said, it's tough to expect Robert Brown, Jarell Eddie and Cadarian Raines will all crack double figures, so let's call this Terps by 9 as they pull away late.

Snaer'd

I just wonder why you would leave a man with a reputation for clutch three point shooting open to take a clutch three point shot as time winds down.  For all the good Dezmine Wells did last night, the decision to double (triple?) down on a driving Ian Miler instead of staying with Snaer was inexcusable

Maryland was doomed from the start of the play.  Nick Faust got rubbed off a (possibly moving) baseline screen by Miller.  Once Miller caught the ball three men descended upon him - none of which were the man assigned to mark him.  My math is rusty, but I'm pretty sure that guaranteed that at least one Seminole would be open.  Worse than that, Miller than got into the lane nearly unmolested by the defense.  Credit him for the heads up play for finding Snaer after Dez Wells lost his damn mind, and after that it was almost as academic as a layup.

There isn't much more to say.  The offense actually came to play, looking nearly well-oiled for the first time seemingly since Greivis Vasquez was on campus, or at very least since the Virginia Tech game earlier this month.  The Terps scored 71 points in 65 possessions, a solid performance, but in the end turnovers were the undoing.  Maryland was -10 in that battle, coughing the rock up 16 times versus only six takeaways.  You can't do that.

Many will look at Dez Wells' 8-12 night from the field (19 points) and the tough shots he made and say he kept us in the game.  True to an extent, but while I hate to harp on the night's leading scorer, his six turnovers are unacceptably high.  The Terps had 71 points in 49 possessions where they didn't turn the ball over, good for about 1.4 points per trip.  So true, Dez had 19 points, but you simply can't look at that without debiting it by eight or so points for all the unforced errors that ended possessions.  

So it's on the next one.  I said before this game that The Terps Really Need This One or Else, so, uh I guess they really, really pretty please with sugar on top need to go ahead and beat 10-10 Wake Forest at home on the courts of Comcast tomorrow afternoon.

To that end, I'm pretty confident that this will be more like Virginia Tech at home than Boston College at home.  The Deacs aren't too dissimilar to the Hokies.  While the Hokies have a competent offense and an Ivy-League level defense, the Deacons are similarly bad on both sides of the ball.  The reason I point to the similarities is that it's one or two guys and then not much else.  Sure, no one on Wake is as fantastic as Erick Green is for VT, but then Travis McKie and CJ Harris is as good a one-two punch as a bad team will have.

Harris isn't a huge volume shooter, but his percentages (51/42/83) are outstanding and he'll get to the line a ton.  McKie also has similar numbers, albeit trading a few points of accuracy for increased usage.  He's also a very strong rebounder for a 6-7 de facto PF.  After those two, with six freshman and a sophomore rounding out the rotation, there isn't much.  Devin Thomas is very good rebounder and defender, giving Wake Forest its only legitimate player with size at 6-9.  He had an outstanding 29-14 game in the upset win over NC State last week and has become a consistent double figure scorer in ACC play.

Long gone are the days of Dino Gaudio making a Good Sauce, and the Jeff Bzzz era is still at least another year from being a danger to sting anyone.  Kenpom and Vegas both call it Terps -11.  I'll say the Terps keep the offensive chops they found against the Seminoles and win it by 17 going away.

Florida State, for the season

Having already lost to Florida State once this month, Maryland experiences the joys of the unbalanced schedule by making the return trip to Tallahassee just three weeks later.  The Terps, of course, find themselves in precarious position with a still somewhat gaudy 15-5 record overall but a decidedly less ostentatious 3-4 ACC record.  Given the lack of non conference heft this year, if you believe as I do that the Terps will need 11 ACC wins to feel assured of dancing come March, the calculus becomes clear for this game.  A loss against a middle of the road Florida State team would leave the Terps heading into February needing to reel off eight out of ten to make the tournament and with only one road win in almost three months to their credit.  Even against the softer half of the schedule, that's not entirely encouraging.

The good news for Maryland - all standard disclaimers about not wishing injury on anyone - is that Terrance Shannon will be out for the game, as well as the foreseeable future.  He's not their best player - that would be Michael Snaer - nor is he the player that dominated the Terps in College Park - that would be Okaro White, but he did have eight rebounds in the first encounter and is the Noles' best rebounder.  They'll still have plenty of depth with White and a trio of (raw) seven footers', making them the only team on Maryland's schedule bigger than them, but there's no doubt that the offense will run more through the guards.

As a matter of fact, ol' Bunny Colvin's use of his depth makes Coach Turge's ten man hockey-line change gameplan look positively Thad Mattan.  In Sunday's blowout loss at Miami, Hamilton used 11 guys for double digit minutes, a few days after using 9 in double digits and two more for between five and ten minutes against Clemson.

This is far from a gimme, but this could certainly be a confidence booster for the Terps as Florida State already has five home losses, including Ls against powerhouses Mercer (of tournament tree fame) and South Alabama (of John Pelfrey fame) so the Donald L. Tucker Center hasn't really been a house of horrors.  kenpom has us favored by the slimmest of margins, and that's alright for me - Terps 67, Florida State 64.

VT Shot Chart (1/5/13)

The last time we had an offense.  Rewatching this game wasn't nearly as much of a chore as some of the others this month will be.

Pe'shon Howard: 0-5 (0-2, 0-0, 0-0, 0-3)
Nick Faust: 0-1 (0-0, 0-1, 0-0, 0-0)
Dez Wells: 3-5 (2-3, 0-0, 0-0, 1-2)
James Padgett: 0-1 (0-1, 0-0, 0-0, 0-0)
Alex Len: 6-12 (4-5, 1-4, 1-3, 0-0)
Seth Allen: 8-12 (3-3, 0-1, 2-2, 3-5)
Logan Aronhalt: 2-3 (0-0, 0-0, 0-0, 2-3)
Jake Layman: 6-12 (2-3, 0-0, 0-0, 4-9)
Chuck Mitchell: 4-6 (2-3, 2-3, 0-0, 0-0)
Shaq Cleare: 2-3 (1-1, 1-2, 0-0, 0-0)

Another Cameron Ass-Whooping

If indeed this was Maryland's last game at Cameron Indoor Stadium for a while, it was a fitting one.  The Terps lost their sixth straight there, failing to keep the score to single digits for the fifth time in that span.  For the second straight weekend, a good, but not great, wing from the research triangle lit the Terps up.  This time it was Duke frosh Rasheed Sulaimon who tallied 25 points, including 6 three pointers.  After weeks of offensive struggles where the Terps were able to fall back on their excellent defense, the bottom fell out.  Not only did the Blue Devils put together a scintillating 61.1 eFG% on the day, but the Terps forced an abysmal - even by their low standards - 4 turnovers on the day, including none in the entire second half where Duke's lead ballooned from 8 at the half to north of 20.

For the Terps part, they were right at the point per possession mark, so despite this being a Duke team that was scorched for 90 two nights ago, that qualifies as a success.  The bigs led the way with 25 points on 10-18 shooting, plus eight offensive boards (six by Charles Mitchell), but once again the guards were ice cold from inside the arc and outside the arc, garnishing their missed shots with plenty of turnovers.

I talked about the potential to win the game at the 4, but it didn't turn out like that at all.  Amile Jefferson, once a key Maryland target for the class of 2012, had perhaps his best game of the season with 11 points (9 FTA), 9 boards and 3 blocked shots.

Duke continued to go with a short bench, as expected, playing a seven man rotation except for three minutes by de facto fourth big men Marshall Plumlee and Alex Murphy, two men not nearly as good as their older brothers.  Quinn Cook played all 40 minutes, dishing 9 assists and providing a stark contrast to Maryland's lack of quality point guard play, and Mason Plumlee saw the bench for only three minutes despite vague foul trouble.

Speaking of point guard play, it's getting worse, not better for Maryland.  Nick Faust is not the answer.  His performance last year should have been enough to prove that, but tonight's game was particularly bad.  Faust had a 3-12 night from the field, making two threes but taking several other ill-advised attempts, and turned the ball over four times.  Not that he was alone.  Pe'Shon Howard played 21 minutes with almost nothing positive to show for it, but plenty of lazy passes and WTF moments to make up for it. 

More disappointingly, Seth Allen sat the first half for "disciplinary reasons".  That's now three of the four freshman who have sat extended periods within a game for off the court issues, first with Jake Layman sitting a half for academics and then Charles Mitchell checking in after Spencer Barks at Miami due to "immaturity".  Not a promising sign.

Mitchell was great today, the second straight week he's been a lone beacon in a crappy road loss, going for 13 and 7 in only 12 minutes.  It begs the question of why he'd only play 12 minutes, particularly with Shaq Cleare in foul trouble early, but it seems clear at this point that for whatever reasons, Turgeon doesn't trust Mitchell as a consistent 20+ minute per night player.  No doubt he's one of many on the team that needs to value the ball better, but he's without question the team's strongest rebounder, even over Alex Len, and he shows promising, if not completely refined, offensive skills for a freshman.

And oh yeah, Alex Len did this:

Good times.

Shot breakdown below.  As always, layups/dunks, short shots/jumpers, mid-range jumpers, threes:


Logan Aronhalt: 2-4 (0-1, 0-0, 1-1, 1-2)
Seth Allen: 1-2 (1-1, 0-0, 0-0, 0-1)
Shaq Cleare: 1-2 (0-0, 1-2, 0-0, 0-0)
Nick Faust: 3-12 (1-4, 0-2, 0-1, 2-5)
Pe'Shon Howard: 2-5 (2-2, 0-2, 0-0, 0-1)
Jake Layman: 2-6 (0-0, 1-1, 0-0, 1-5)
Alex Len: 3-6 (3-4, 0-1, 0-1, 0-0)
Charles Mitchell: 5-8 (5-7, 0-1. 0-0, 0-0)
James Padgett: 1-2 (1-2, 0-0, 0-0, 0-0)
Dez Wells: 5-13 (4-7, 0-1, 0-1, 1-4)

Showdown at Cameron

Saturday at 1 PM might be the end of an era, the same way that last Saturday at noon might have been the end of an era.  Maryland travels to Duke for what could be their final game at Cameron Indoor Stadium before their move to the Big Ten in 2014-15.  The schedule for next season has yet to be released with the expanded 14 team ACC so it remains to be seen whether the teams will play a home and home series or only a single game at Cameron or the Comcast Center.  Whenever it happens, it'll be the first time since 1953-54 that the Terps won't travel down to Durham to take on the Blue Devils.

Duke is still currently #1, but as you surely know by now, they were absolutely destroyed on the road against Miami, taking the third worst loss ever for a top ranked team and the program's worst in almost thirty years.  With last weekend's loss to NC State, Duke sits at now 3-2, two full games behind conference leading Miami.  No doubt the storylines write themselves - the Blue Devils can't win without Kelly, the team shot only 4-23 from outside the arc against Miami - and while those ring true, the simple reality is that Duke lost its two conference games because it played horrendous defense, allowing 84 points in 72 possessions against NC State and 90 in 79 possessions last night against the Canes.  Both teams got to the line at will, and destroyed Duke from inside the arc.  The Wolfpack was 26-51 and Miami was 24-39.

Ryan Kelly won't win Defensive Player of the Year awards, but he's a very good shotblocker who presents a serious matchup problem defensively at 6-11 guarding power forwards typically several inches smaller.  Now Mason Plumlee's interior counterparts are Amile Jefferson (6-8) and Josh Hairston (6-7).  It makes sense then that Kenny Kadji and CJ Leslie shot a combined 16-24 from inside the arc in the two losses.  This isn't the whole story, but it's going to be a large part of it going forward until Ryan Kelly rises from the ashes.

I should also point out what Luke Winn mentioned in his power rankings (from before the Miami game).  Essentially Duke went from having Kelly, a guy who draws more fouls than he commits, to two guys who do the exact opposite, particularly in the case of Josh Hairston, who adds a huge amount of fouls to his lack of shot blocking.  Again, Kelly might not be Ron Artest, but blocking shots, being super tall for your position, and avoiding fouls is a pretty good statistical base defensively.

Now...well I guess Maryland factors in here somewhere.  The issue for the Terps is that they don't have a CJ Leslie or Kenny Kadji.  None of the three non-Alex Len big men have the kind of length and athleticism that those two have, and while Shaq Cleare and Chuck Mitchell could certainly use their girth to create issues for the much smaller Duke 4s, neither are polished enough 20 games into their career to feel comfortable that they can take advantage.  Turge's best bet may be a small lineup with Jake Layman at the four.  Given his recent productivity with two 15+ point games in ACC play already, he could have a big night.  Or he could fail to register an impact at all as he did in the other four games.

The other issue is that Layman at the four almost certainly necessitates starting Pe'shon Howard or perhaps Seth Allen at the one, which will lead mainly to more plodding half court sets that go nowhere.  Hopefully I'll get a chance to finish rewatching the Boston College game, but it seemed clear that the only time Maryland wasn't dysfunctional offensively was during the last ten minutes when they got out and ran with the ball in Dez Wells' hands.  Wells can't "run the point" in the traditional sense, but he can attack the basket, finish, and has great court vision to set up the open man on the perimeter.

In any event, this game won't determine the Terps season.  A win would be enormous, but the team hasn't been consistent enough that we can trust them to validate it with wins in the games they should win.  Meanwhile, in the likely event of a loss, next week's game against Florida State on the road looms very large for a team that could find itself in need of 8 of their last 10 just to make the tournament should they swing and miss on the road trip.

Game Breakdown, UNC 1/19/13

I know I'm a little late on breaking down this monstrosity of a game but a) I traveled 600 miles to watch it and wasn't in a hurry to relive it and b) greatness takes time.

Point Breakdown:
Transition: 20
Halfcourt: 16
Putbacks: 16

It's tough to make much out of a one game sample where the team only scored 52 points, especially with no frame of reference for how these categories typically breakdown, but I think it's safe to say that a team should make more than 8 shots out of its halfcourt offense in 40 minutes.

Altogether, the Terps got 71 cracks at scoring, a pretty brisk pace typical of a Maryland-North Carolina tilt, if not typical of Turgeon's tenure here.  However, 21 of those ended with turnovers.  This isn't exactly earth shattering news, but the Terps absolutely do not take care of the ball, and it's killing them.  Even counting charges as being forced turnovers - and if you see some of Nick Faust's wild drives you know that isn't quite the case - the Tar Heels only forced seven turnovers on the day.  The unfortunate reality is that those 7 turnovers were sandwiched between and around an additional 14 unforced giveaways.  Those happened in all manner of ways.  Dez Wells loses his handle.  Pe'shon Howard throws an errant pass.  Off the ball offensive foul.  Dez Wells loses his handle.  Pe'shon Howard forgets the Terps weren't wearing Carolina Blue.  Et cetera.

Even without the turnovers, though, Maryland had 50 possessions and only 52 points out of them.  A point per possession is not bad, but when we're only looking at the possessions where the team got a shot, you simply have to score much, much more than that, even with a good defensive effort that saw the Terps hold UNC to just 20 in the second 20 minutes of the game and far less than a point per possession overall.  Oddly enough, that was the third time in the first four games that UNC hadn't cracked the Turgeon Line, a rarity for a usually prolific offense that speaks to how different this team is than a typical Roy Williams UNC team.

Shooting:

Alex Len: 4-7 (2-3 at rim, 1-2 short jumpers, 1-1 mid-range jumpers, 0-0 threes)
Shaq Cleare: 1-2 (0-1, 1-1, 0-0, 0-0)
Chuck Mitchell: 4-7 (4-5, 0-2, 0-0, 0-0)
James Padgett: 1-3 (1-1, 0-2, 0-0, 0-0)
Jake Layman: 0-2 (0-0, 0-1, 0-0, 0-1)
Dez Wells: 8-11 (8-9, 0-1, 0-1, 0-0)
Nick Faust: 1-5 (0-1, 0-0, 0-1, 1-3)
Logan Aronhalt: 0-4 (0-0, 0-0, 0-1, 0-3)
Seth Allen: 2-12 (2-3, 0-3, 0-1, 0-5)
Pe'Shon Howard: 0-0 (0-0, 0-0, 0-0, 0-0)

Overall shooting: 17-25 at the rim, 2-12 on short jumpers, 0-4 on mid-range jumpers, 1-12 on threes.

The Terps had 7 points from the field which weren't layups or dunks.  Not good.

Blast-Off #3

Mumpkins and Ritchie's Blast-Off #3

51-50 W vs (14) NCST

The Terps didn't want me to write a third-straight disappointing post, so they decided to pull out a win over the (14) NCST Wolfpack tonight at Comcast. What a game. Despite not making a FG for a 10-minute period in the first half, the Terps got after it on defense all night, holding the NCAA leader in team field goal percentage (52.8%) to a measly 31.1%. They played with passion and energy and looked like they wanted to win. It was quite the contrast from the team that took the court in Coral Gables on Sunday night. Dez Wells had a SICK block, Len had a sick alley-oop down the stretch, and Len bailed out Pe on the final shot. I've watched the highlights on ESPN 4 times already, and I have a feeling it won't be getting old anytime soon.

Gary was there to receive some painting at halftime (I could explain it better but don't feel like it. Still bummed he didn't fistpump) and this W was a good way to tell our former AD what's up. Thanks for bankrupting us, a-hole, but we've moved on to B1GGER and better things. I still miss Gary a lot though:

"Kathy Worthington doesn't speak for me, she has never won a national championship, she has never done anything. She's an associate AD. This is just giving you guys stuff to make me look bad."

Let's get to it!

On blast:

1. Refs - I hate when fans blame refs for a loss, or complain an inordinate amount about the officiating in general. But Mike Eades, Roger Ayers, and Raymond Styons (thank you, Yahoo Sports) were not on their game tonight. In a physical game like that, I find it hard to believe that 8 of the first 11 fouls in the second half were on the Terps. One foul in particular stands out - with about 9:28 left in the game, CJ Leslie drove to the basket and was guarded by Padge. Leslie put up the contested shot, missed, fell to the floor, and Padge collected the rebound and looked up to pass. A full 2-seconds after the shot occurred, the foul was called. Ridiculous...

(Side note: Check out this site if you want to yell better,more personal insults to the refs of your favorite college basketball team!)

2. Students who stormed the court - It's not a HUGE deal to me, and I'm not embarrassed to be a Maryland fan because of it, but really? They were 14th-ranked coming into the game despite being picked pre-season to win the ACC. That means they have under-achieved, despite a win vs then (1) Duke in Raleigh on Saturday. They're not a top-10 team, not one of our rivals, and this game didn't clinch any sort of championship (regular season or otherwise).

Guys who get to ride up front for being good at sports:

1. Terps - Sounds really lame to just pick everyone, but it was a really balanced effort tonight. Dez didn't have the best game, but he still worked his butt off on the defensive end. Pe finally hit some shots, but 9 is still too many for him to take in my opinion. All in all though, great team win and hoping it builds momentum going to Chapel Hill on Saturday.

2. Coach Turgeon - Mainly for epic postgame quotes tonight:

''I didn't come here to be mediocre. I came here to do great things. We haven't done many great things since I've been here. This is a great thing.''

''We hadn't won a big game since Greivis was here."

Was this Turgeon's "Georgetown win?" (for those who don't know what that means, see #8 on this list) Time will tell...

We'll be roadtripping to Chapel Hill on Friday afternoon for the game on Saturday. More to come from the Research Triangle on Saturday... Go Terps!

Give and Take

Turnover margin will kill this team. All season the team has been effective shooting the ball (last 60ish minutes notwithstanding), good at rebounding it, and has had an advantage on the FT line, yet their efficiency numbers on both sides of the ball were only so-so.

 Why? Part of that was simply that those first numbers were so high because the competition was weak, but I would submit that a bigger portion of that was turnover margin. Quite simply, the team coughs the ball up far too often, and does absolutely nothing defensively to pressure the team into their own giveaways. It's a recipe for disaster to be giving the opposition three and four extra possessions every single game.

Of the 347 DI teams, and the Terps are 325th in pace-adjusted TO-margin (defensive TO% - offensive TO%), good for worst among power conference teams. The other teams which are even close to - albeit still ahead of - Maryland are Utah, South Carolina, Cal, Texas, Georgia and Rutgers. Not one of those teams has a serious shot at the NCAA Tournament, and realistically any of them would be happy with an NIT right now. That's where Maryland is.

 Look, Coach Turgeon has already said that he's uninterested in installing a press as part of the team's game to game defense, but given how lax the late game press was tonight, Turge would be well served to practice and employ it with more regularity, especially with the depth, length and athleticism of this particular group.

On the other side, there's no simple answer as almost everyone in the team's backcourt struggles to take care of the ball. Only Logan Aronhalt has a TO% below the national average, and as we all know, his role is that of a spot up shooter.

 It's hard to say this was THE backbreaker tonight. After all, the Terps only barely shot 30%, and turnovers or not, the team managed 47 points in a relatively fast (70 possession) game, but once again, they gave up 6 extra possessions due to turnovers, forcing only 8 and giving up 14 - mostly in a putrid 14 point first half. In a seven point loss where neither team did much with the basketball, it's not easy to overcome nearly twice as many giveaways as takeaways.

 Given Turgeon's stated defensive preference - the team also finished last in conference play last season in TO% - it's probably not reasonable to think that the team will be playing 40 Minutes of Hell defense anytime soon, but why have the turnovers increased from bad to season-crushing this season?  Surely Allen and an allegedly healthy Pe'shon Howard at the point supported mainly by semi-vets Dez Wells and Nick Faust ought to be better than last year's group of Faust or a hobbled Howard at point, supported by Jonathan Thomas in spot minutes and Stoglin and Sean Mosley on the wing, but so far not so much.  Turgeon's ability to solve this one is where the season hinges.

Blast-Off #2

Mumpkins and Ritchie's Blast Off #2

54-47 L @Miami

Second straight post after a very disappointing loss. I'm extremely frustrated after watching an ugly, sloppy game by both teams. After the second half of the FSU game, I didn't think the Terps were capable of playing a worse 20 minutes of basketball, and then they put up a 14 spot in the first half tonight. So not too many fun links tonight, unfortunately. Let's get right to it, shall we?

On blast:
1. Coach Turgeon - After a bad loss at home on Wednesday, I would've expected to see an energized, motivated Terps team hustling after loose balls and working extra hard on the boards and defensive side of the ball. After their first loss in 14 games last year, the Terps took the floor in Coral Gables flat, lethargic, and uninspired. And during their second HORRIBLE half of basketball in a row, there were no real changes made by Turgeon (lineup or otherwise) that were effective in getting the Terps to play harder, resulting in a measly 14 point output after 20 minutes of play. I'm not talking about shooting percentages or stats. I'm talking about hustle and effort. The Terps have shown they're capable of playing hard this season, but they haven't shown much of that in the past 60 minutes of basketball. I hope Turgeon can find a way to push his players to maximum effort in the next few games. They're going to need it.

2. James Padgett, Logan Aronhalt, Jake Layman, Nick Faust, Seth Allen, Shaq Cleare, Pe'shon Howard, Charles Mitchell, Spencer Barks, and Nick Faust - Combined 13 points on 5-33 from the floor, including 2-12 from 3 and 1-4 from the FT stripe. I wasn't too impressed with the level of effort all around. The Terps just didn't look like they wanted to be on the court today. Coaching can only do so much, but at some point, the players need to decide how badly they want to win. Two players stepped up tonight, but the rest didn't show much desire to compete, and no one really showed a sense or urgency down the stretch on either side of the ball.

Guys who get to ride up front for being good at sports:
1. Dez Wells - one of the few Terps who came to play in the first half. Dez finished with 18 points on 7-11 FG while grabbing 5 boards. It was good to see SOMEONE hustle for boards and drive hard to the hole. His lone blemish were 3 turnovers, including 2 terrible offensive fouls on fast break opportunities when the Terps had numbers and should have scored. Dez needs to be a little smarter: possibly come to a jump-stop and dish off a bounce pass, rather than driving out of control and throwing behind-the-back or over-the-head passes while crashing into a stationary defender.

2. Alex Len - A very solid 16 point, 9 rebound performance. Alex had a few very nice plays down the stretch to keep the Terps in the game. You know Alex is scary-good when he's capable of having a quiet performance like this. Although Turgeon has said Alex can hit 3's like they were layups, he took a questionable 3 in a critical juncture in the second half on a play drawn up out of a timeout. If Alex (who has yet to hit a 3PFG in his career at Maryland) taking a 3 is the play we draw up out of a timeout, something has to change. With his size, he should have an easier time backing his defender down, or putting the ball on the floor and going around him, while settling less for long jump shots. He also led the team in turnovers tonight with 4.



Terps will need a win Wednesday to gain any kind of momentum continuing ACC play. The schedule doesn't get any easier from here, but a win over a (soon to be) top-15 NCST team would do wonders for their confidence. Maybe a little home cooking will serve them well. I surely hope so. GO TERPS! BEAT STATE!

Blast-Off #1

This is the first of a line of sub-blog posts about Maryland basketball called

"Mumpkins' and Ritchie's Blast-Off!"

...where S.Terpleton and I put a few people on blast after the game and also acknowledge those who were good at sports tonight.

On blast:
1. Fans who left early - After Snaer hit a layup to put FSU up 8 with 1:04 to go, about a quarter of the paying fans (not many students) left their seats to make a quick exit to their cars. Have you never seen a college basketball game before? This was a 3-possession game, not a 15 or 20 point blowout. This is a young team that feeds off the energy in the Comcastle (that name still doesn't feel right, so much to the chagrin of my co-author I will not be using it again) and everyone threw in the towel. I was ecstatic to see the Terps keep fighting and make it a game, and yelled various profanities at the fans who left early. S. Terpleton was quick to remind me that they were no longer in the building and couldn't hear me. Womp womp...

2. Coach Turgeon - As much as I have adamantly defended him this year and last, tonight was not his best night as a coach. He was the first to admit such after the game, claiming some responsibility and admitting he panicked just as much as the players. Credit FSU's defense, but the Terps looked complete incompetent throughout much of the second half. Sloppy turnovers and ugly shots kept them scoreless for long periods of time, and none of Turgeon's substitutions seemed to have any effect. Additionally, how is the player who just hit a clutch shot taken out right before you need a big three? Can't understand why Faust wasn't on the floor for the last play. Ultimately, it wouldn't have mattered because Seth forced a contested 3. Which brings us to another question - After the Kentucky fiasco, how do the Terps not have some sort of play drawn up when they need a shot at the end of a game?

3. Dezmine Wells - Everyone has off-nights, so Dez is only quasi-on-blast tonight. 2/9 shooting isn't close to good, but add-in 5 turnovers and the fact that several shots had no chance of going in, and you have a frustrating game by one of your star players...

4. Karl Hess - I absolutely HATE when fans blame the game on the officials, so by no means will I be doing that. Poor execution and too many turnovers were to blame tonight. But Karl and his boys did call a terribly inconsistent game though. At times, touch fouls were whistled, and on one particular play, a Seminole played leap-frog using a Terp big-man, literally pushing off to jump higher, and no whistle was called. I especially dislike when refs who are out of position or simply can't see the play blow their whistles and make calls.


Tonight, Nick Faust gets to ride up front for being good at sports. Nick finished 5-10 from the field including 4/6 from 3 with 14 points. After playing limited minutes on Saturday vs VT because of back spasms, he came up big, especially down the stretch with a rainmaker of a 3 to bring the Terps within 1 with 10 seconds to go. Let's hope this is a sign of things to come for Nick!


Tough lost for the Terps tonight. Definitely some growing pains being worked out. Hope they move on and continue to learn from it. Terps take their talents to South Beach on Sunday at 8. Go Terps! Beat Miami!