At 16-2 overall and 5-1 in the Big Ten, the Maryland Terrapins have nothing to apologize for. The problem is that, because of unforeseen circumstances, they don’t have a whole lot to celebrate just yet either.
(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)
While a 5-1 start in league play is nothing to sneeze at, two Big Ten upstarts – Iowa and Indiana- have gotten off to fast starts and both have favorable conference schedules over the next six weeks prior to postseason play. Just a few short weeks ago conventional wisdom said that Purdue and Michigan State would challenge the Terps for conference bragging rights but the landscape has changed.
One of the best parts of any college basketball season is that there are teams that not much was expected of that seem to come from out of nowhere to impress. Last year, Maryland was one of those teams. This year the Iowa Hawkeyes blazed to a 5-0 league start that includes a home and home sweep of conference badass Michigan State and, more impressively, a win at Purdue where they were behind by double digits against a team with a terrific home court advantage. They also have six wins already against the top 50.
And they come to College Park in less than two weeks.
Indiana doesn’t have nearly the credentials Iowa has but they sit 5-0 at this point as well. They were less than impressive in December but used a really good come from behind win against in-state rival Notre Dame over the holidays as a springboard to a conference start where they have played against most of the lesser teams in the league. To their credit the Hoosiers have taken care of business.
So here we sit…not even halfway through the season but with enough games having been played to form judgements about teams and players and their respective directions.
One of the things you have to love about the Terps is the way they respond to a loss. Opponents won’t like them when they’re angry. They followed up a loss at North Carolina with a thrashing of Saint Francis and, right afterward, an impressive performance against UConn in Madison Square Garden. This past week they followed up a hard fought loss at Michigan with a complete dismantling of Ohio State this past Saturday afternoon. I don’t want to mitigate that Michigan loss. It may very well be that the loss in Ann Arbor comes back to haunt the Terps in terms of power numbers or seeding for the conference tournament. Even with that you’ve gotta love the bounce back.
I’d be reluctant to hand out specific grades for Maryland players because, after all, we’re five games into conference play and most of them would be incompletes. But certainly enough signs and trends are there for us.
It would be difficult to argue with the efforts and results for the core mathematically. The team is shooting over 51% from the field, 75% from the free throw line and 38% from three. Those are all insane numbers after such a large sample size. The team is made up of willing defenders and they have regularly been able to find a defensive rhythm in most games and completely lock in on the opposition – both in and out of conference play.
Far more important than the numbers is the qualitative play of the whole. One of the central themes when this team is at its most formidable is the play of the backcourt. When both Melo Trimble and Rasheed Sulaimon are playing well this team is going to be really difficult to beat. At Northwestern (who was 13-1 at the time) Sulaimon started the flame throwing in the first half before Trimble completely finished the job with a point guard clinic in the last 30 minutes. In the game against Ohio State this past weekend, Trimble controlled the game as well as any player you’ll ever see who only made two field goals. His nine assists more than complimented Sulaimon’s efficient 22 point effort (on just ten field goal attempts).
When the two of them struggled together at Michigan the result that followed can’t have come as too big a surprise.
That’s not to say that the other guys aren’t getting the job done. Again, the other core players – Robert Carter Jr, Jake Layman and Diamond Stone- have taken turns being very good. Stone has not only met the hype he came in with, he has played with a level of consistency that is usually way beyond most freshman big men. Carter put together a virtuoso performance against Ohio State and has been a beast in almost every game. Layman deserves major credit for transforming his game. A lot of fans seem to want to think that Jake is a primary-scorer kind of guy and that, for whatever reason, his ten points per game on such a balanced team is a problem. The fact is that his all court game has totally evolved. He does a lot of the subtle things that help win games and it’ll pay off for him and the team in the long run.
But it’s not all sunshine and balloons.
The play off the Maryland bench has been spotty, to say the least. The confidence has seemed to wane for more than a few of the Terp reserves and the quality of play has followed. Michal Cekovsky, for instance can show you NBA size, strength and athleticism one minute and then be unable to catch a simple bounce pass. Now he’s in a difficult spot for himself. He needs to play more to play his way out of things but he’s not going to play more until he plays better. The same is true of reserve guard Jaylen Brantley. He has loads of game offensively. The problem comes at the other end where he has been unable to really engage opposing guards.
Enter Varun Ram.
Ram’s story isn’t just what’s right with college sports; it’s what’s right for this team. It’s a group that is filled with high profile/big time players and personalities. To have Ram around adds a certain something to the mix. He’s limited offensively, no doubt, but the intangibles and the defense he provides you more than balance that out. Good teams are filled with multiple stories and personalities and backgrounds. Beyond that there’s this…he deserves to play and they need him.
Even with a gaudy record and a top five ranking these are directional times for every team in a sport where parity reigns. Over the next ten days the Terps will have three critical games that include a nationally televised monster at Michigan State and a less heralded – though probably more important- game at home against Iowa. On the one hand, winning all of them isn’t absolutely essential. On the other hand, winning all of them would put this team in a great spot as they head to February.
Terps Analyst
A fixture in the Washington sports scene since his days as a player and a coach, Chris Knoche has accumulated a diverse resume as a media presence in town for more than two decades. That resume has earned him opportunities on both national and local stages and made him a Washington DC staple on radio, television and in digital media.