Without lookign at the stat sheet Howard seemed to havea better game distributing the ball, whether or not the other guys finished. They need to have their hands up when he drives the lane as he is looking to dish it to an open man as opposed to Stoglin who they know is somehow going to throw it up there. They will get over this as they mature and grow into their own games, but most of he players are to used to standing around and watching Stoglin create his own shot, and they stop moving wothout the ball to receive it. Some of them at least move to try to get the rebound. Howard will get them the ball if he can and theyare ready for it. It looked like he may finally be tired of getting his shot slapped into the stands.
Also Pankey did look OK with minutes. He is a red shirt so he will be around awhile.
If anyone is surprised by this result you need to get your head checked. Florida St. has a team stocked with solid veteran players and they whupped us last night. Honestly, I'm just glad we kept it close for some of it, in fact we led at one point, UNC didn't ever lead in their blowout loss. St. is a good team that can be a great team when they play their game, which is defense and points of turnovers and fastbreak. Berend Weijs gave us surprisingly good minutes in Len's stead...Len needs to man up. One key I think that really hurt us is Turge sat down Stoglin for like a 5 minute period in the second half, and we suffered because we had no scoring options. Mosely was again mostly invisible; that bro needs to learn how to be consistent in this his senior season, but if he hasn't learned in 3 years, he will never learn. There were a lot of loose balls and rebounds that St. just worked harder for; Bernard James is a man among boys in there, I think he will be second or third team ACC when its all said and done this year. Overall not a poor effort I don't think, St. just wanted it more and outplayed us.
After all this, I'm pretty shocked we are at .500 in the ACC...a testament to Turgeon's coaching.
As has been the case for most of the season to date, the Terps only showed up for one half with Fl. St.'s size utimately being the difference. Len just isn't seasoned, mean or strong enough yet and Padgett is...well, he's just Padgett (although until last night, he had been doing a good job on the offensive boards). Right on, 9999, Weijs did turn in a really solid effort which hopefully is a sign of things to come from him. I'm giving Mosley one pass for last night's performance since he had been the biggest reason for much of our recent success; another poor outing against Temple, however, and he's fair game again. Stoglin put up big numbers and distributed the ball much better last night, but he continues to force shots way too often. PeShon still needs to look for his shot more often; his floater in the lane over and around 3 Seminoles during the latter part of the 1st half was a thing of beauty. The skills are obviously there, he just needs the confidence to go with them.
Florida St. appears to be a legit tournament team with a nice balance of size, speed, tenacious D and good perimeter shooting. I no longer believe that Duke and Carolina are the "odds on" favorites to win the conference again this year.
Growing pains and a dose of reality for the next week or so, but these young Terps have already exceeded expectations, IMO. I'm sticking with my prediction of 5 conference wins, 81.
Terpo has reformed me up to 5 also, but that is topping it out for me. This team simply does not have enough players that can score to beat a good team even on their best night. When Mosely is on, he shoots jumpers and Stoglin makes his own offense, while everyone else stands and watches and then gets in position for an offensive rebound. On the defensive end they don't get their noses dirty enough under the glass to tough out a win against a good team if they did happen to catch one napping. We have a chance against the BC's, VT's, WF's and GT's at home, but a road win or a win against anyone else will surely be an upset.
It's not that the players can't play. It's that some of them simply should not be starters. They are simply undermanned, but that won't be for long. I enjoyed watching the game even though we were losing. The only real disppointment was Len because even though he is a freshman, with his size and international experience you just expect more. I have to keep catching myself and remember he is in a strange land trying to go to class and acclimate to a new country where he doesn't even speak much of the language yet. I am sure he will be a different player next year with a years experience and 20 more pounds. After next season he may be good enough that we are hoping he doesn't got to the next level, but for now he is not doing us much good. He at least needs to make his fouls count instead of them being ticky tack over the back penalties.
Everyone else played about to their current ability I think. As far as Howard goes I think he is doing ok and he does have some skill, but his PG skills running the break need some work and his team mates are not helping him out by getting in position to receive a pass, or at times even putting their hands up so they have a chance to catch it when he fools the defense and gets it to them. He needs to be very good because that is the only position that was not recruited this year unless Seth Allen switches to PG or Faust grows into it. Allen is a pure shooter, but does seem to have ball skills as well. To be honest I wonder if Stoglin might not think he can play at the next level the way he is scoring at this one already so we may need Allen to stick to SG anyway.
Look at FSU an you may be seeing the Terps next year or the year after with 3 very big guys in the middle and two very good shooters at guard. Cleare is a monster and with Len and either Pankey who looks good for a redshirt, Padgett who is much improved, newcomer Jale Layman, or Parker. We should have 4 guards who can all score without a lot of dropoff when Stoglin sits for a breather.
That second half was tough to watch. FSU is a very talented team and I was proud of the way the Terps stayed with them for the first half, but they played about as poorly as I have seen lately in the second half. Probably a mark of a young team, but hopefully as we get deeper into ACC play, they can put together more complete games. All that said, they've been better than I expected this year, so I think Turgeon is going to be a solid coach for us. Much better shape than the football program is in right now!
