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.
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.
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