Terps Basketball: Built For The Ride

In an age where you can’t click on a link without running into another preview of the college basketball season, the last thing anyone needs to see is another preview from a talking head so I’ll spare you.

That said, as it applies to the Maryland Terrapins and their fortunes this season, even the most objective observer would tell you that this is a team that has an abundance of, well, pretty much everything.

(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)

In what really amounted to just a few short months, Head Coach Mark Turgeon didn’t just change the roster…he changed to culture and the karma. Prior to last season, the Terps would occasionally play games like a completely dispassionate NBA team, with inconsistent effort and a regular lack of team play as trademarks.

That’s all ancient history now.

What emerged after the roster purge of 2014 was a team that had a handful of intangibles that far exceeded the significance of the limited expectations as they entered the first year in the Big Ten. Gone from the program were a number of strong personalities. That vacuum allowed Turgeon to turn the point guard position over to a much hyped freshman in Melo Trimble without any kind of fear of older players being pissed off about a younger guy being handed the keys to the car.

More importantly, that vacuum allowed for the adults to take over things again. Seniors Dez Wells, Jon Graham and Richaud Pack were poster boys for effort and commitment. The sheer force of personality that Wells, in particular, had spearheaded a terrific start that continued into Big Ten play and the TEAM never looked back.

Anybody who ever coached a college team can tell you that it can be easy to be a one year wonder in college hoops. Get that one under recruited kid who grows and develops in school and turns into that 20-10 kid. Get that junior college kid who got his grades late the year. Put together a group that grows and jells together over multiple seasons to produce that one great year. Those things happen.

Getting there is one thing…staying there is another animal.

So what did Mark Turgeon and his staff do during the off season to insure last year would not be a one off? Well, they did plenty.

He was aided by a string of events that he was certainly a big part of but couldn’t necessarily control. For instance, I’m sure he had some talks with Trimble and Jake Layman about the NBA draft. We can all be sure that he gave them an honest appraisal and probably told both they weren’t quite ready. As honest and truthful as those assessments were, you never know what happens when those players leave his office. They have handlers and family and God knows who telling them that they’re way beyond College Park.

The culture won out. Both decided to come back.

Then there were the things that he could control. Recruiting at the highest takes effort and hustle and the ability to develop connections in a very limited window. You can’t be ambivalent about it, you have to embrace it and live it.

Enter Diamond Stone.

To have pulled off the kind of coup that signing Stone was a really remarkable thing. You recruit him out of the middle of Wisconsin – not exactly fertile recruiting ground for any east coast team. You recruit him not just out of the middle of Big Ten territory but right out from under the nose a state university that was pretty damn sure he was headed their way. It was beyond impressive.

Then you have to figure out how you deal with the leadership void created by the departure of the seniors. Clearly guys like Robert Carter Jr. and Jake Layman would have to shoulder some of that as fourth year guys but you miss the alpha dog, the MFer that was Dez.

Enter Rasheed Sulaimon.

Perhaps the only thing better than Turgeon and his staff being able to get Sulaimon for one last season as a grad student is the fact that he came to College Park from Duke. You don’t need too much help from Al Gore and his internet to know just how badly hosed this kid was in Durham last year. None of us can speak to what went on in the Duke locker room but the way his situation was handled by the student newspaper and the resulting whispers and nebulous (at best) allegations is pretty much lawsuit worthy. So, as if this kid didn’t always work his ass off (and he has) we are likely to see an enormous chip on his shoulder.

With all of that set as a backdrop, I’ve had the pleasure of attending a few practices and can offer some random observations about what the early going has looked like….

First, Sulaimon will be the best on-ball defender that the program has had since I don’t know who. Watching him I was trying to think of a comp. Mo Howard was a friend of mine back in the 70s and he was terrific defensively. He had nowhere near the size and strength that Sulaimon has. Broadnax? Blake (a really underrated on the ball defender)? I have no idea….

Second, speaking to the depth, Ivan Bender the 6’9” redshirt freshman from Bosnia and Herzegovina who transferred in can really play. On probably half of the Terp teams in the last decade he might have started and fans would have loved him and his feel for the game.

He may get no burn whatsoever.

Third, Carter and Layman offer Mark Turgeon unbelievably flexible options at the 3 and 4 spots. Both play inside and out and will be able to take advantage of almost every conceivable man to man D. Partly because of that and partly because of the shortened shot clock the Terps may be seeing an awful lot of zone in the early going of the season. Layman has added a ripped 22 pounds from his playing weight of last season and is up from 193 to 215 (Kyle Tarp is a God!!) and Carter is, well, just kind of a monster.

As for an observation on the coaching and teaching I have a really simple one. For all of his Midwest earnestness, Mark Turgeon takes no shit. He has no problem calling out players regardless of resume. The quality of the team play – as well as his coaching- set the bar very high. He appears to embrace the opportunity to stay at that level and won’t tolerate those who aren’t on board for even a minute.

Last….for all the hype around Carter and Stone and Sulaimon and the new and improved Damonte Dodd, the one undeniably indispensable piece to the equation is Melo Trimble. Like most accomplished athletes, Melo is far more likely to learn from his failures than his successes. When you look at the bludgeoning he took from West Virginia in the last game of the NCAA tournament and couple it with his difficulties playing against grown-ass men in the Pan American games this summer you can see where, as great as that freshman season was, he still has a lot of growing to do as a player. He may be a far better player this year and not get the 16 plus points per game he had last year.

He just cannot get hurt.

Casting no aspersions on backups like Varun Ram and Jaylen Brantley, neither of them were voted preseason Big Ten player of the year. I’m sure both would be solid in a pinch but for this team to go where it wants to go, Trimble has to have the keys to the aforementioned car again this season.

We have to temper it all a bit. What you see on paper can bear little resemblance to the end product. After all, we’re just a few months removed from Bryce Harper saying, “Where’s my ring?” after the National’s signing of Max Scherzer.

Ultimately, success or failure is built on the six games you hope to be playing in March and April of the NCAA tournament next spring. This team is very clearly built for the ride.