In Maryland’s first-true road game of the year, the Terrapins won 62-39 at Penn State in the annual ACC/Big Ten Challenge.  With the win, Maryland moves to 6-2 on the season.

The best thing about a game like this is gaining the experience of going on the road in a hostile environment against another major-conference team. The Byrce Jordan Center crowd was very vocal early. Nearly 5 minutes into the game tonight, the Terps were down 7-0 and had already accumulated 6 turnovers (including 4 calls of traveling). Responding to that challenge and finding a way to win tonight, will help this team going forward.

The Good:

1) Great sharing of the basketball by the Terps tonight. Best shown on Howard’s layup in the first-half. Maryland finished with 17 assists.

2) In football, they say defense and a running game always travels. In basketball I think the accurate analogy is defense and low-post scoring. Early on tonight, Maryland was facing adversity. The Terps found their comfort zone when they started to look and find Williams in the post.

3) Padgett provided some good minutes. You can see his offensive moves continue to improve. Finished with 6 points and a board.

4) Maryland was able to exploit a team that had limited depth, by continuing to rotate bodies into the game. The Terps bench outscored PSU’s bench 24-3.

4a) Howard and Stoglin combined for 17 points, and gained the experience of playing on the road for the first time in College.

5) Mosley buried his two 3’s in the first-half, shooting the second one with a lot of confidence. Early in the second-half he went right to the rim, for 3 the old-fashioned way. Him getting going and providing some offense is huge. Hopefully he can build on tonight, as the Terps will just be a different team if he can provide consistent scoring.

6) Maryland held PSU to 20 points in the 1st half, and 19 points in the 2nd half.

7) Gregory missed a lot of the 1st half after picking up two fouls. He was able to finish with 10 points, and 9 boards. His 10 points included a strong-dunk, a jumper from 18, and basket in transition. He is giving MD very good production at the 4.

8) Tucker had a quiet box-score (4 assists, 2 blocks), but he locked-up Battle most of the night and made several good passes as well.

9) Terps win on the boards 40-36, and also had 9 blocks.

The Bad:

1) The Terps are getting into a bad routine of starting slowly. There was a lot of worry going into the season about how the Terps would handle pressure on the ball, or how they would react in tight 1/2 court sets. The issue that has emerged with some consistency early on has been the number of unforced errors away from the basket. An amazing amount of traveling calls against MD the last two games.

2) Maybe I should have this elsewhere as Maryland went to the half with the lead, but the half-time box-score was remarkable. The Terps finished the first-half  with 16 shots, while Penn State had 40. If PSU had actually hit some shots (they were 9 for 40) or if Maryland had not found a way to get to the foul-line (Terps were 8 for 12), the Terps could have been in serious trouble. The teams were equal on the boards at 18, the difference was the 12 Maryland turnovers. You simply can not allow the opponent to have that type of disparity in attempts.

3) Another poor FT shooting night for Jordan Williams. He was 3 for 9 tonight, and has been to the line at-least 5 times in every game. This is going from being a concern to a legitimate liability.

4) After being in double-figures scoring each of the first 6 games, Tucker was held to 8 against Elon, and 0 tonight.  Tucker finished with just 4 shots, which I think is way to low for him. (In the first five-games he had at-least 10 attempts each game)

The Ugly:

No matter how you cut it, PSU had a poor night shooting; but Terps have to get some credit as well for the Lions’ 14-68 (20.6%) night from the floor. Maryland still has plenty to work on, but they won a road-game against a Major Conference team by 23 points. It is hard to say anything was Ugly from that perspective.

Up-Next:

Sunday night Maryland will face Temple in the BB&T Tournament at the Verizon Center.  Temple is 4-2, with wins over Seton Hall, Toledo, Georgia, and Central Michigan, and losses to Cal and Texas A&M. The Owls were the preseason favorite of the Atlantic 10 Conference, with Lavoy Allen and Juan Fernandez named to 1st and 2nd team preseason All-Conference teams.

After losing the two neutral court games in NYC, the road-victory tonight was significant. Temple will be a bigger challenge than PSU, and another game you look back on come March.

Chris Stoner
Chris Stoner

Owner

Chris Stoner founded Baltimore Sports and Life in 2009. He has appeared as a radio guest with 1090 WBAL, 105.7 The Fan, CBS 1300, Q1370, WOYK 1350, WKAV 1400, and WNST 1570. He has also been interviewed by The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore Business Journal, and PressBox (TV). As Owner, his responsibilities include serving as the Managing Editor, Publicist, & Sales Director.

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