With all due respect to ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt, you can root for the Terps, enjoy the season but still be skeptical about the Terps in how they might finish the season and how they will perform in the Big Ten and NCAA Tournaments.
At this point there are only four games left in the regular season so barring some major unforeseen event, Maryland will get that monkey off their back and win their first Big Ten title. That said, these last games of the regular season will not be a cake walk. Especially with a Michigan team that is getting hot once again at just the right time.
(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)
The Terps will still have to prove themselves in post season play and will have the opportunity to do so. Despite a poor performance at #25 Ohio State the Terps still played hard and fought to the very end losing by just 7. I think that performance spoke volumes about this team. That’s also a game in which the Terps had foul trouble and prior to that foul trouble tried to expand their bench to get some guys some playing time and experience for the upcoming post season.
As we know, this is not a very deep team. However, there have been Tournament teams that have only gone 6-7 deep and have had success. For this MD team to have a post-season run, it is incumbent on Cowan and Smith being smart and staying out of foul trouble. It’s also on Coach Turgeon to switch up defenses at times and go zone to keep those guys out of foul trouble.
This may be the last time for Turgeon to prove the post-season doubters wrong. Losing Cowan and Smith next year is huge, especially with Cowan. His career has been pretty stellar and you don’t just replace a guy like him. Wiggins will not go to the NBA unless he plays the way he did against Ohio State for the rest of the season which I do not believe he will. At best he is a mid 2nd round pick although I realize NBA team’s project as much as look at the data for the performances on hand.
Next year’s team as of now will probably be more of an 18-20 win team next season as I see it. They do not have anywhere close to a Top 25 recruiting class coming into College Park. Turgeon and the current Terps need to go deep. If they do Turgeon will see a lot more love from the fan base than he has historically.
Is Turgeon underappreciated in totality? (2nd Winningest Overall and Conference team in the Big Ten since 2014) Yes. Are the criticisms leveled against him unfair or baseless? Absolutely not! This team can go deep in the Tournament as long as they do not get too 3 happy and Cowan and Smith stay out of foul trouble. Turgeon has three years left on his deal but this may be the best opportunity he has to make a deep run in the Tournament and frankly I don’t think anyone will be happy until they get to the Elite 8.
One final note, if the Terps win their first ever Big Ten Regular Season Championship it likely won’t mean much to fans if the Terps have early exits in either the Big Ten Tournament or NCAA Tournament. It should not however. If the Terps win the Big Ten Regular season, that is an awfully big deal. Given the depth and quality of the Conference this season and given the amount of upsets in College Basketball this season it’s a huge accomplishment. A 20 game Conference schedule is a grind and to win it outright is a huge deal. Clearly at a program like MD, we get caught up in the bigger picture of the NCAA Tournament. I will never argue that it’s not okay to judge the ultimate success of the program and a season by how far MD advances. We all want to see Elite 8 and Final 4 runs. That said, hanging a regular season banner – particularly this year – is quite an accomplishment in its own right.
Terps Analyst
Mike Popovec is a Weekend and Fill-In host at 105-7 The Fan. In addition Mike hosts the Pre and Post, Halftime and Scoreboard Updates for the Football Games on the Maryland Terrapins Sports Radio Network. He also hosts the Pre and Post Game Show on weekends for some of the Maryland Basketball Games. Popovec also hosts a local News, Talk and Sports Morning Program at the beach on 92-7 WGMD. He also produces and hosts High School Football Games and Shows throughout the season out of Easton covering the Eastern Shore’s Bayside Conference. He sideline reports for CW54 for the Maryland State High School Football Playoffs with Bruce Cunningham, Doug Duvall and Wally Williams.