You can’t make too big a deal about the Maryland Terrapins and their sound 81-55 thrashing of a depleted Illinois team on Thursday night. That would be like saying the thirty point win against Bowie State would have them totally ready to throttle Wisconsin in their next outing.
That didn’t happen. And the fact of the matter is that – much like the stock market- past performance is no indicator of future performance.
(You can discuss this on the BSL Board here.)
Yet, all of that said, a lot of indicators will tell you that this team suddenly finds itself on an uptick heading into the last game of the season at Indiana and the Big Ten Tournament next week.
It’s funny how a fan base can react to things in this day and age. It seems like every play of every game is dissected in 140 characters or less. Toss on the complete over-saturation of college basketball on television every night of the week and one loss can have an entire fan base marching like lemmings right to the edge of the cliff.
Everybody: take a deep breath and a play out of the Aaron Rodgers playbook here. Relax.
The team sits 24-6 overall and 12-5 in the league. That’s not too shabby. Yet, they were anointed “best team in the Big Ten” before a single game was played and had their star point guard voted as the conference’s preseason player of the year by the same media that assured us the team was the class of the conference.
We all got caught up in the preseason hype.
Even with all of the hand-wringing, this Terp team finds themselves not too far afield from where they hoped to be at the start of the season. They didn’t win the conference regular season championship but those things are as hollow as a chocolate Easter bunny. They did, however, earn a much needed – and much deserved- double bye in Indianapolis next week in the conference tournament.
Just as important as the doubly bye is the fact there is plenty of evidence that this team – after 30 games- is right where they want to be. That evidence is both quantitative and qualitative. After that horrible debacle at Minnesota this team has found itself a bit. They’re far from perfect but, fortunately for all of us, they exist in a college basketball environment that is devoid of any great team that you want to avoid at all costs.
I know I’ll hear from folks that I’m an apologist for this team or that the check I get makes it hard for me to be objective. Maybe. But there’s plenty of evidence to support the theory that this glass is half full.
First, the guard play has been very good of late and will be huge in tournament settings. Melo Trimble appears to be more Melo than Mellow after a midseason stumble. The gift of time off after a Big Ten grind has him with spring in his step. Rasheed Sulaimon continues his jack-of-all-trades season. There was a six game stretch where he averaged 16.9 points per game right up until the Purdue game. He did not shoot the ball well at Purdue and had –for him- a subpar floor game but came back to have a sparkling 9 assists/0 turnover game against Illinois.
I’m not sure if I should add Jake Layman to the conversation about guard play because, truth be told, I love him at the power forward spot. Quiet and unassuming, the senior is on a tear. In the past five games he is 27-39 from the field (69%) and 10-15 from three (67%). He has also continued to excel defensively and has regularly shut down many of the leading scorers in the conference.
The play of the bench has been far better of late. Sophomore Jared Nickens is like a lot of kids his age. If he’s shooting and scoring he suddenly becomes a better ball handler and defender. Too much of his game is directly tied to whether he is making shots. Well, over the past three games he has been making those shots (9/16 from three) and his contributions have been large. Jaylon Brantley looks very comfortable contributing at either position in the backcourt and has given the team a boost as well.
So many stats can be bent to serve pretty much any point you want to make but most of the recent numbers all support the notion that my eyes tell me right now. This team is playing better and headed for good things. If you get caught up in some of the minutiae (i.e. Diamond Stone playing a subpar 12 minutes against Illinois, the team getting hammered on the glass at Purdue, Robert Carter’s defensive indifference, etc.) just remind yourself that, for the most part, the team has fought their way out of those issues. As atrocious as the rebounding was a Purdue, for instance, the Terps were able to adjust using defensive pressure and timely play making to almost steal a game that the stats would have told you they had no shot in.
The team now heads to Indiana…a stunning conference champion who has transformed their season after a mediocre start. For even the most casual college hoops fan, Assembly Hall in Bloomington should be on the bucket list. In Indiana Maryland will not only face a team that has remained red-hot for two plus months, they’ll face one of the most accomplished players in recent college basketball history in Yogi Ferrell.
Ferrell is generously listed at 6’1”. On Sunday he will have his very own senior day and will be celebrated by a savvy fan base that recognizes greatness (and greatness that stayed four years to boot). In four seasons in Bloomington, this guy has amassed more than 1,900 points, 600 assists and 400 rebounds. Not only that his fingerprints, attitude and spirit are imprinted all over this particular brand of Hoosier overachievers. He had a couple of battles with Trimble last year that were breathtaking.
This one should be as well.
On the other side of Sunday’s game Indianapolis and the Big Ten Tourney await. I mentioned that I thought a regular season crown is a little hollow. A conference tournament title is a different thing entirely. Winning one can give you huge momentum and improve your seeding dramatically. Because of the nature of the three-four game grind it takes to win, a team gets an enormous amount of satisfaction taking on all comers and raising a trophy at the end of it. Barring any injuries of physical setbacks heading into the tournament this Maryland team should find themselves in the thick of things in Indianapolis.
Right where they expected to be all along.
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.