Maryland loses in OT; The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Gary Williams and the Terrapins lost a tough-game in overtime against Wake Forest tonight, to fall to 10-5 overall, and 1-1 in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

The Demon Deacons of Wake, are a big, athletic team with plenty of skill. As the game played out, there is some satisfaction with showing you could play with that team until the final shot of overtime. The over-riding feeling though is that Maryland missed a golden-opportunity to get to 2-0 in conference.

The Good:

1) Obviously Maryland will face teams later this year (like Duke, and UNC) that have tremendous size, and depth. Regardless of who the Terps face, they will not face a team that has more size, and athleticism than Wake Forest. The Maryland team competed as a whole, winning the battle on the glass 43-41. The Terps also had 28 points in the paint (38 for Wake) which was solid.

2) Vasquez forced a number of shots tonight, especially towards the end of OT. While 26 Field-Goal attempts are too much, I’ll choose to applaud Vasquez for trying to do what he could to help Maryland win. He finished with 30 points, 7 assists, 4 rebounds, and a 1 steal.

3) The zone-defense by Maryland was effective, particularly with Bowie at the top. For the 2nd-consecutive game Bowie was disruptive at the top of the key.

3a) 10 points, 4 rebounds, 3 steals, and 5 of 6 from the line for Bowie tonight in his 19 minutes of action. Aside from the Raycom announcers calling him ‘Anthony’ and a Senior all game, it was a good night for Bowie.

4) Sean Mosley had 8 points, 13 huge rebounds, 2 assists, and a steal. As big as he plays, he is 6’4. His success on the boards is the result of strength, and his will.

5) Jordan Williams had 12 points, 3 boards, and a block in his first ACC road game. He had a couple of nice plays in 2 man games with Vasquez, and Hayes. His follow put-back in OT was beautiful.

6) I’ll get to the negatives of Milbourne below, but in a game where had to deal with defending Aminu, I think Milbourne again deserves credit for doing what he can to help the team. He is a 6’7 Small-Forward, that is forced to play the Power-Forward position for MD. He does what he can at the 4 position, and had 6 rebounds, and 5 assists to go with his 11 points tonight.

The Bad:

1) Finishing with 15 turnovers on the road in the ACC is acceptable. Having 6 or 7 unforced turnovers is not. Maryland had a number of empty possessions that just killed them tonight.

2) Vasquez’s late 3 point attempt in OT was a bad decision. The clock was reset, and there was no reason for that force. Vasquez finished 8 for 11 from the line, which is good. However, that is 3 misses, after he missed 4 in the previous game against FSU. He shot 86.7% from the FT line last year, and entered tonight at 82.1% For as many FT’s as he attempts, that disparity would be a big deal if it persisted.

3) With just a 9 man rotation, playing on the road, in a second-game in three days, I would have liked to have seen Tucker, and Padgett get more than 7 minutes each. Especially when you consider this game went to OT. Wake is a very athletic team, and Tucker and Padgett are two of the most athletic players on the Maryland roster.

4) Gregory fouled-out, finishing with 2 points, 4 boards, and a steal. Williams had 4 fouls of his own. Padgett is going to have to regularly play, and help. For all the rumors about Goins leaving the program, he is still part of the roster as of now. If at any-time this year he gets healthy enough to be available to give just a few minutes (and more importantly his fouls), that would help.

5) Hayes had 32 minutes of action, and had 4 shots. He made 3 of those opportunities. He had zero-trips to the foul-line. Nobody on Maryland has a better shot than Hayes. While Vasquez is the creator, and the scorer; the ball should be in Hayes hands late in games. He has to be more aggressive about attacking.

6) Understandably tired from guarding Aminu, Milbourne was not overly effective on the offensive end. He was just 5 of 15 from the field, and did not just struggle getting his shot-off against bigger players; but missed several gimmes from in-close, where he looked like he was missing his legs. Milbourne played 40 minutes tonight. I think you have to think about playing him less minutes, with the hope he will be able to provide more offense in limited time.

7) Jordan Williams has to have more than 3 rebounds in 27 minutes. In the out-of-conference portion of the schedule, we talked about how Williams free-throw shooting had to improve. Obviously his two OT misses tonight were huge. The ACC is a copy-cat league, so you can expect that other teams are going to continue to look to put him on the line. At-least every announcer speaks to him showing good-form.

7a) 1 game after showing a strong post-move against Florida State, Padgett looked tentative in his limited action tonight. He has to enter games ready to provide defense, and rebounded immediately.

The Ugly:

1) Maryland had just 2 fast-break points to Wake’s 18. The Terps have to be able to get out and run, and score in-transition.

Up-Next:

It was disappointing that could not finish tonight with the W, but there were some good things to take from the game.

I guess I will ultimately judge tonight, from what happens on the court Saturday at Boston College. The Eagles are not any better than Wake, but winning on the road in the ACC is always difficult. Boston College and the other former Big East teams (VaTech, and Miami) typically play a physical style of basketball that the Terps have not handled well.

In the match-up against Coach Al Skinner and BC, Maryland has to face a team that also runs the flex-offense. Hopefully the earlier game this year against Skinner disciple Ed Cooley and Fairfield will provide Maryland with some comfort. For the Maryland Senior’s Vasquez, Hayes, and Milbourne this will be their 3rd trip to Boston College. They lost in their Freshman season, won in their Sophomore season, and did visit BC last year.

The Eagles are 10-6 overall, 1-1 in the conference. This is a perplexing team to figure out. They have won games at Providence (Big East), at Michigan (Big 10), and against Miami. They have also lost games to Harvard, and Maine. Tomorrow night BC will face Duke at Cameron. That game will certainly give Maryland a chance to evaluate the Eagles.

If Maryland loses at Boston College, it is not the end of the world. The Terps could always steal a game elsewhere on their schedule that they are not currently expected to win.

On the other-hand, if Maryland can get the win, the Terps would obviously move to 2-1 in league play, with an out of conference automatic win waiting for them against Longwood. Maryland would be 12-5, 2-1 with home-games waiting for them against NCST, and Miami. The opportunity is there for the Terps to have a very strong start to their league play, if they are able to take advantage.