Terps beat Albany; The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

The University of Maryland improved to 8-3, with a 83-72 victory over Albany. It was the Terps first double-digit victory of the season, and the first glimpse of this MD team with their full roster.

The Good:

1) Maryland debuted the starting lineup of Howard, Stoglin, Mosley, Pankey, and Alex Len. Pretty impressive for Len to get the start in his first college game, after missing the previous 10 outings.
1a) Len’s first basket came early with an athletic throw-down in the initial minute of the game. This was quickly followed-up with Len knocking down a jumper from 15 feet out. Len’s third basket (another dunk) had MD’s radio announcers saying radio could not do justice for the play. The Ukrainian big finished 5 for 5 in his first 20 minutes of college basketball, with his 4th dunk of the game ending the 1st half. With just about 4 minutes left, Len stepped-up and took a big charge. Len finished with 14 points, 8 boards, and 3 blocks. A tremendous debut.

2) With MD’s new depth, the Terps were able to make wholesale changes off the bench. 4 minutes into the game, all 9 scholarship players for MD had gotten into the game. The tempo MD played with was much improved.

3) Stoglin hit his first three shots of the game, with two of those shots coming from 3 point land. Stoglin’s 6th 3 pointer of the game, put MD up 61-52. The Sophomore guard got his Coach up and off the bench with a nice assist to Faust. He had another good assist, finding a streaking Mosley give the Terps the 77-71 lead. Stoglin finished with 22 points, 4 boards, 3 assists, and a steal.

4) Parker hit a 3 at the 7 minute mark of the 1st half, putting the Terps up by 13 at 30-17. He hit both of his foul shots, and finished with 4 boards.

5) Albany was playing mostly zone tonight, and MD made them pay with 9 three-pointers (Stoglin had 6).

6) The Great Danes were within 2 with under a minute left in the 1st, when Mosley hit a 3. The Sr. Guard had 5 boards, and 6 assists.

7) For the 2nd straight game, Weijs had 3 blocks. MD had 9 as a team.

8) Faust tied the game at 52, attacking the basket, and scoring his 3rd FG of the game. With just under 2 minutes left, Faust would find Stoglin for the alley-oop. He finished with 10 points, 4 boards, 2 assists, and a steal.

9) Maryland dominated the boards 48-27, with Padgett finishing with 7 rebounds, including 5 on the offensive end.
9a) Everyone of of MD’s 9 scholarship players had at-least 4 boards.

10) The Terps had 19 assists on their 29 FG’s. Howard led the way, with his 8 assists.

The Bad:

1) Len, and Pankey allowed Devlin to score on a 2nd shot opportunity, to pull Albany within 3 at 9-6.
1a) Len was credited with 5 turnovers. I believe two of them came from a called offensive foul, and goal tending.

2) Coming out of the 16 minute timeout, Albany pressed MD, and caused a 4th Terps turnover.

3) I like that Faust was looking for his shot, especially as he was coming off the bench. That said, in the 1st half he was forcing some shots that were not there. He was also settling for shots from the outside against the Albany zone.

4) Howard gave up an easy layup to make an around the next pass to Pankey for the slam, which Pankey was not able to complete. Falling out of bounds with his teammates up the court, Howard was picked off, and Albany converted. Howard compounded the error with a foul. The PG finished with 6 turnovers.

5) Albany’s Suero was able to penetrate MD’s defense too often. MD was not stepping-up to defend him.

6) Pankey has shown he can score in the post, when he gets the ball. Len being available, is not reason for Pankey to finish with just 1 shot.

The Ugly:

1) After being up 13 with 7 minutes left in the 1st half, the Terps allowed Albany to climb back within 2 over the next 5 minutes. MD went into the half with a 5 point lead. At the half, Coach Turgeon was interviewed by Walt Williams and stated his team had not yet learned how to play defense. 3 minutes into the 2nd half, MD was down 2.

2) Down 50-48, MD went on a 15-2 run to grab the 63-52 lead. However, this was followed by a 20-6 Albany spurt, which closed the game to 72-69 with 5 minutes remaining.