Maryland grabs 16th win; The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

As would be expected, the University of Maryland destroyed the Longwood Lancers to improve to 16-8 overall (5-4 in the Atlantic Coast Conference). With the 106 to 52 win, the Terps have now won 5 of their last 6 games.

It was a rout from the beginning, with little to take away from the game beyond the effort shown by Maryland.

The Good:

1) Quick 11-0 run from the Terps to take immediate control of the game. At half-time Maryland had a 28 point lead. Clearly Longwood is one of the worst Division 1 teams in the Country, but Maryland put up over 100 points (at-least 50 in both halves) and had 8 players with at-least 9 points.

2) Gregory played well from the outset, nearly having a double-double at half-time. For the game he had 14 points, 11 boards.

3) Off the bench, Palsson came into play the PF position and quickly buried two shots. He set his career high in scoring against Wake over the weekend, and had a new career high in scoring by half-time tonight with 10 points, making all 4 of his attempts. He finished with 13 points, 4 boards, 4 assists, and 2 steals.

4) Maryland absolutely slaughtered Longwood on the boards, winning that battle 51 to 25.

5) With a 25+/- point lead late in the first-half, both Weijs and Parker were able to get into the game.

6) Mosley was looking to get on track offensively, launching 8 attempts in the first-half. What you really liked was that he continued shooting in the second 20 minutes. For the game Mosley had 20 points, 5 boards, 3 steals, and 2 assists. The first 20 point outing for Mosley since the season opener against Seattle.

7) Howard again started and filled-up the stat sheet. He finished with 11 points, 2 rebounds, 6 assists, and 2 steals.

8) The FT shooting seems has been improving collectively. Tonight the Terps were 18 of 26 from the line. (Gregory was 6 of 6)

9) Stoglin turned it on in the 2nd half which was really good to see. Obviously the opposition was poor, but the Terps need him as a scorer. Scorers always believe their next shot is going in, but as I will point out below – Stoglin has struggled with his shot in recent weeks. Coming alive offensively in these last 20 minutes has to have helped his confidence. He finished with 15 points, 4 assists, and a steal.

10) I’ll point out below that I did not like how many 3 point shots the Terps took tonight, but they did knock down 10 of their attempts.

11) Maryland had 28 assists on their 38 made Field Goals.

12) Career win number 665 for Gary Williams as he continues to move up the all-time charts.

The Bad:

1) 10 minutes into this game, the Terps had taken 10 attempts from 3 point land against the Box & 1 defense of Longwood.  By half-time, Maryland had taken 9 more. Absolutely no reason for MD to be settling for so many shots from outside. For the game, the Terps had 28 such attempts.

1a) On Jan 4th, Stoglin hit 3 of 5 from 3 point land. After that game, Stoglin was 17 of 42 (40%) from that distance. After going 2 for 5 tonight, Stoglin has made just 7 of his last 31 attempts (22%) from 3. (You would hope he could build on his couple of makes in the 2nd half tonight)

2) Williams picked up 3 early fouls, and struggled in the first half against the Box & 1 defense of Longwood.

2a) Seemingly the 2nd half whistle blew and Williams had picked-up his 4th. (His 9 points and 11 boards was fairly remarkable considering how little he was on the court)

The Ugly:

None.

Up-Next:

The Terps have at-least 8 games remaining in this 2010-11 season (7 regular season games, 1st round of the ACC Tournament). Each of them are going to be important.  Saturday Maryland travels to Boston College, and Tuesday the Terps will be at Virgina Tech. Not going to be a lot of time to prepare for either game, so luckily the MD has played both teams. Of course the negative is that the Terps lost to both teams at-home. It is my belief that MD needs to at-least split these two road games. I think the Terps gave away the home game to BC, and I do believe the Terps will avenge that loss with a win at Chestnut Hill.