Terps rocked in Indiana; Quick Hits

Tonight the University of Maryland had the opportunity to move into sole-possession of first place in the Big Ten, with a road victory over #13 Indiana. Instead, the Terps suffered an 89-70 beating that will recalibrate expectations for MD going forward.

With the loss, the Terrpains (Ranked 8th in the USA Today Coaches poll, 13th in the AP poll coming in) fall to 17-3 overall, and 5-2 in league play.

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

Quick Hits:

1) It felt as if the first half was largely controlled by Indiana, but MD went to the break down just 3. I felt as if MD had taken the Hoosiers best blows, and were in good shape overall. I anticipated half time defensive adjustments, along with an expectation the Terps would get to the line more often to close out the game. Neither of those expectations came to fruition, leading to a long night for MD fans.

2) Maryland got serenaded to chants of ‘Overrated’ as the game was winding down. Fair or unfair? Either way, MD will get a chance for redemption vs. Indiana February 11th at College Park.

3) The Terps had just 10 foul shots for the game, and made just 4. The surprise of the game for me was that MD did not have 20+ attempts. Playing a team with very limited size, I expected that Wells, Trimble, and Layman would regularly drive to the rim, get contact, and earn their trips.

4) It’s hard to get blown out while shooting over 50% from the court, yet that happened tonight (MD was 27 of 53, 51%).

5) Maryland is a very good team when at-least 2 of of their ‘Big 3’ play well. Tonight the only one of the Layman, Trimble, Wells trio that played okay was Layman – and after a quality first half, he was a ghost pretty much in the second twenty minutes.

6) Indiana was 30 of 50 (60%) from the floor, including 15 of 22 from 3 (68%), along with 14-18 at the foul line. Give credit to the Hoosiers (particularly Yogi Ferrell with his 7 of 8 night from 3) for knocking down shots, but that’s an embarrassing defensive effort from the Terps.

7) Smotrycz and Pack struggled mightily defensively tonight.

8) Wiley was 3 of 5 for 9 points, and Nickens was 4 of 8 (all 3’s) for 12 points. Interested to see what the tape says about their defensive efforts.

9) Dodd started the game, but Coach Turgeon quickly turned to Graham against the smaller, quicker Hoosiers. Graham had 6 points (making all 3 of his FG attempts, while missing the front-end of two 1&1’s) and 6 boards. Dodd finished with 1 board. His final minutes had to be extremely limited. Cekovsky did not get on the floor until garbage time. Smotrycz also saw some time at the 5 tonight.

10) The Terps often praise Ram’s on-ball pressure. Might have been interesting to see him get time earlier tonight.

11) It felt at times like Turgeon was trying to let MD’s players figure out their issues on their own tonight. Did he figure it was a matter of effort? Routinely we saw that smaller, quicker Indiana lineup attacking the basket, and looking for kick outs to the perimeter. Some changes from the bench were necessary.

12) The Hoosiers – without the injured Hanner Mosquera-Perea – had a rotation of guys all 6’7 and below. MD was never able to exploit that size advantage. Indiana won on the boards 27 to 24. Totally unacceptable.

13) Next-up for MD is Northwestern (10-9 overall, 1-5 in the Big Ten) Sunday night at home.