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.