VA TECH....

Guys this is no relief " we're at home against 1-4 in ACC VA Tech". ACC record  non-withstanding their rpi is 77 vs our crappy 104. They were actually a little tauted before and hopefully they haven't gotten their act together yet. I predict yet another close game, as all of ours have been. This is a must win. A loss here means a 4- game losing streak and that can get a young team down. I think it will also be a decent measure of Turgeon's motivational ability as opposed to X's and O's. We still have a shot to be in that 2nd tier ACC. Finally though a team that doesn't have such a huge line-up with multiple 6'10+ starters. Anyone going to the game??

Hey Terpoboy, thanks for posting.
I can't always post or reply but enjoy the thread.
The CBS Md Boards have a small nucleus of posters and it's generally fun to read.
Sargarin has the points at a little more that 6 in favor of VT.
They have them ranked at 150 today (it changes daily).
VT is 52nd.
Maryland has beat everyone behind them (they have played a bunch behind them) and three ahead of them, ND, Col and GT.I could see them beating BC, then maybe Clemson and GT again.
A surprise against Miami maybe and that would give them 7 wins.
Now two good halves and they could pull another in season upset and maybe a Tourney upset too.
That would be pretty good.
Going to be tough get 18 or 19 wins, not sure what the NIT will take.

Most of the betting lines right now have tech favored by 3 or so. Our MO against the last 3 quality opponents has been to keep it close into the 2nd half, then allow the other team to go on an unanwered 10+ pt scoring streak, and then they hold that lead. I think VA tech is a little better than their record might suggest. Hopefully we can jump out to a big lead and hold on when the 2nd half faltering starts.

LOL you can't give up terpo. This is a game you must have to get to your predictions so don't back off now. This may be as cose to a must win game as the terps get this year ot even get to 5 conference wins. You must expect ot lose to UNC and Duke at home so that ony leaves 6 possible wins and UVA is probably out of our league as well. You have to beat the 1-4 team. Of course if you still think e can win o nthe road then you have a little wiggle room. I don't so to get to 5 this is a must win. If the lose this my prediction drops back to 4 wins again. Remember I thought originally only 3 confrence wins. The guy talking about 18 or 19 wins is on crack.

alright ok ok I predict a win abeit by a slight margin. then we go to miami and lose then come back home with my upset special of NC. (after seeing what Fl state did to them yes I think that game is winnable..) After seeing ACC play I also believe the G tech and clemson games on the road are winnable.

I would say one thing that you should consider in your optimism to sort of keep your heart from being broken. While you feel that as the season goes on and our players hopefully get better, buy in the the coaches style, get used to the road, etc. We still only have 2/3 of a real team, the other places mostly have full benches, and they too are assumed to be getting better. Some of those teams still feel they have legit shots at post season and will be defendign their home courts especiall yas must wins. Lets peek into theor locker room. Who do you think is playing harder, the team that comes to college park knowing that is a winnable road conference game, or the terps who want to won, but pretty much know they are playing out the string getting experience for next year? I am sur they don't think that way, and they think they are trying as hard as they can, but they know.

I believe as the season goes on, and we play teams that still havea chance at a post season tournament, they will be playing for theor lives, making it even more difficult to win at hime much less when tose teams ae defending their home court. This game is one of the few left on the schedule that is even or so, and against a team that also does not have post season hopes. It is a statemetn gam for MD. If they lose it will demoralize this team for the rest of the year. i don't think they expect to play with Duke and UNC this year, but they do think they can play with everyone else. Of course they are very young....LOL. I say they don't have to face that and they win rather easily. Well easily by terp standards which means holding on for a 6 to 8 point win. I say the scorers show up and it is 82-76 MD after the FT parade and a lucky couple three's by VT at the end.

Who would think I would be more optimistic than you on a home game Terpo. What it the worls coming to....LOL

FTT

God my typing sucks. Why can't they get spell check on here? My thoughts travel much faster than my fingers can properly strike keyboard keys. Believe it or not my voice recognition software at work even types better than I do!

 

and UVA is probably out of our league as well.

Probably would have agreed with that statement 100% prior to Sene going down for six weeks, but without him the Cavs are a different team...and not in a better way.  I don't like our chances in Charlottesville even without him in the lineup, but if he's still not playing on the last day of the regular season in College Park, the Terps can win that game.  UVA struggles on the offensive end almost as much as the Terps do at times and without Sene in the lineup, teams have started to converge/double on Scott with less risk of getting burned inside.  We'll see.

I have a bad feeling about the game today.  Generally, aside from when Greivis was winning games virtually by himself, the Terps haven't performed well against the Hokies.  Hopefully, they'll build on the positives from the Duke loss and pull this one out.  I have no doubt it's going to be another nail-biter.


LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, MARYLAND!!     BEAT THE HOKIES!!

The only thing I think that helps the hope for that last UVA game is that is will be senior night so that usually gives the team an extra spark. Maybe if they waited until half time to do the ceremony it would pump the players up far enough to finally play a decetn 2nd half of a game.....

I agree with Skins to a point here in that i feel too, that this is a must-win game. Cannot go on a 4-game skid esp the 4th being a winnable home game. It could be a season-changer. Win then 3-3 and we are in the hunt with some renewed confidence. Go to 2-4 with Miami on the road and NC and it's not looking good there. Winning today makes winning at Miami twice as likely IMO (can't justify that all the way..just a feeling). To me this game will determine whether we will remain mid-tier ACC or join the bottom dwellers and mull around the rest of the season. I don't care for VT either, nothing personal about the team..but we really had a douche VT fan troll our board a couple years ago and now I hate them because of that one toolbox, just like some other ACC teams hate us because Stanrod did that lol. A turtle has elephant memory!

Looked good in the first half.
Now for 20 more minutes.
Hey Skins81 I don't see 18 wins, 7 ACC wins will be tough and that would put them at 17.
I could see 15 before the ACC Tourney though and would love an upset or two.The 18 or 19 was a reference to the minimum to make the NIT.
Go Terps.

once again...good 1st half then 2nd half collapse turn-over laiden and they cut 13 pt lead to 5

stoglin poor fg % Pankey having the best game of any terp imo crashing the boards like a mf****! Len again kinda gone

Stoglin 4/9 FT%  even Vasquez tweeted he needs to pass the ball more lol. I think Pankey is starting to earn more playing time by far our best rebounder today. Another faltered 2nd half and down the stretch i thought it was anybody's game. However this was a good, needed win, once again at least by RPI standards they were a considerably better team than us. And p howard had NONE of our 15 turnovers...WOW  in spite of having the most minutes, must have been related to our only having 7 assists the whole game keeping the ball out of his hands (he only had 3 pts). VT had 14....hmmm that's gotta change.

Why hasn't Turgeon tried any zone defense this year? Its baffling to me, they obviously arent very good in man but yet they still play it 100%. They probably arent any good in the zone either but I would at least try it. Good win for them but they have a TON of growing up to do particularly Stoglin. Hopefully they can go steal one on the road on Wednesday if they can somehow play defense for a game

As you guys alluded to, it was pretty must a must-win today, and despite a crappy 2nd half (IMO), they got it.

It's infuriating to see a 32-19 halftime lead at home wind up being a game in danger in the waning minutes.  We hung on, and I liked Mosley's hustle in the 2nd half, but these turnovers (16 I think) are ridiculous.  It looks even worse when our assist total is in the single digits every game - only 7 or 8 this game.

That's great that Stoglin can drop 28, but still - 5 missed FT's, 0 Ast's, 0 Stl's.  Yeah, almost 30 points is huge, but he's too one-dimensional for me.  I guess one could argue that we don't win if his shots aren't dropping, though.

I agree that Len is starting to look way too soft. ... Faust is still turning the ball over, but at least he's looking to pass and is crashing the boards a bit.

I haven't paid as much attention this this year's team as I would have liked to, but I'll take a 3-3 ACC Record with some very tough road games still on the docket.  IMO, 6-10 in the ACC is very doable - 7-9 if we can sneak a W in one of the 6 remaining road games.

The officiating in the 2nd half was horrible, with awful calls going against both teams.  The flagrant elbow call on Mosley was particularly egregious given that he has absolutely no reputation whatsoever for committing that kind of aggressive foul.  You'd like to think that these refs have some idea of who these players are and how they play...too much to ask for, I guess.

The Terps STILL have no idea how to close out a game with a lead late in the 2nd half and I'm sorry but that falls on the coach.  First, he needs to use his timeouts more effectively.  Don't always wait until the lead has completely evaporated until you call one!  Secondly, you cannot continue to give up uncontested layups EVERY SINGLE TIME your opponent drives in the closing minutes without some semblance of pressure!  Absolutely no help in the lane from Pankey at all as Green continued to bolster his stats with one layup after another; he looked as though he had absolutely no idea where he should be positioned or what he should be doing in that situation.  Stoglin is infuriating as he continues to be able to rain 3s over multiple defenders but can't hit a f***ing free throw when it counts most!  Once again, the senior leadership of Mosley bailed his teammates out. 

A win is a win but I feel more frustrated after this W than I did after the loss to Duke.  At one point early in the 2nd half, the action b/t Va Tech and MD became so ugly that I switched over to catch the end of the Iowa St./Kansas game.  Those two teams play at a level that is so far beyond where the Hokies and Terps are at this point.  Rather than missed free throws, poor execution, turnovers, and bricks, the Cyclones' and Jayhawks' players treated basketball fans to one clutch play after another in a tight game that wasn't decided until the last minute.  And the other nice thing about that game was that the refs let the kids play and decide the outcome!  Think what you want, but the quality of play in the ACC is undergoing a major downturn, IMO.  I don't see one Final Four team coming out of conference this year.

Two tough ones next week.  As has been the case all season, expectations remain low.  At some point you'd think the lightbulb would go on and Turgeon's message would get through, but I'm not sure that's going to happen this season given the current talent pool.  SIGH.


LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, MARYLAND!!


 

Solid analysis, mac.

I too thought the Mosley *cough* flagrant was beyond ridiculous.  When they went to take a closer look at it, it was pretty obvious to me that he didn't make any contact with the dude.  The announcers on the CW/Ch54 broadcast in Bmore seemed to think, as did I, that they were looking to see if any contact was made at all.  Then the call of a flagrant comes through??!?!?!?!   Beyond a bad call.

This is a personal pet peeve of mine, but IMO, Turgeon won't call a T.O. with any kind of spontaniety.  GW would call them with fervor even if there were three minutes left before the next TV timeout ... and he'd call another right on top of that one if his point wasn't made.  Not saying that I want Turgeon to be GW ... we proabably needed the change ... but as you nentioned, at a minimum, he needs to manage them better.  Good coaches call them *before* a 14 point lead goes down to 3 or 4 - and that can happen quickly in the ACC regardless of who a team is playing.

I wasn't as frustrated as after the Duke loss, but I hear what you're saying - a general lack of execution and some really poor decisions (or passive play) in the 2nd half made it somewhat tough to watch.  I'd like to think that some of these young guys will continue to improve in our last ten games plus the ACC Tourney, but you're right - we have to address fundamentals (FT's, not giving up the lane ... and I mentioned passing more and turnovers).

I second your SIGH, lol.  But at least we got the W today.

So what do you think, I see three more wins.
BC, a split with Miami and a road win with either Clemson or GT.
Thats gets us to 16 wins and 6 in the ACC.
Can we steal one mone and a Tourney win?

Feb 1     @Miami (Fla.)     8:00 PM    Wed
Feb 4     North Carolina    4:00 PM    Sat
Feb 7     @Clemson         7:00 PM    Tue
Feb 11   @Duke              4:00 PM    Sat
Feb 16   Boston College   9:00 PM    Th
Feb 18   @Virginia           1:00 PM    Sat
Feb 21   Miami (Fla.)       8:00 PM    Tue
Feb 25   @Georgia Tech   2:30 PM    Sat
Feb 29   @North Carolina 7:00 PM    Wed
Mar 4     Virginia             2:00 PM    Sun

Mar 8    ACC Tourney Start