Duke or bust...

Well to start...did anyone watch the duke/BC game today? All I can say about watching BC is....REFRESHING. They are better than their record and will be a handful next year. They played with poise, patience, and discipline...3 things the terps have lacked all season. Refreshing to see them not brick up immediate shots and exercise the shot clock. It looked like an actual offensive scheme every time down the court. I see us losing to duke really bad and that will basically end ncaa hopes. Turg seems to be a defensive-minded coach only, ie, defend well and the offense will somehow happen. Does anyone know if we actually run a designated offensive style or not??..because I certainly don't see it with any consistency. I don't see any discipline on this team and it hasn't improved at all so my predictions are revised to 8-10 for ACC record, 9-9 @best. NIT maybe. 

Thing is...here's what really bugs me. We all thought there would be a significant improvement over last year. Key word=significant. I don't see it. I see a very small degree of improvement. 

I'd be lying if I didn't say I was very disappointed so far with this season.  Very unexpected.  It doesn't matter if we beat Duke or not, we still have a LONG way to improve.

They (BC) played with poise, patience, and discipline...3 things the terps have lacked all season.

Talk to Turgeon.  There are plenty of teams with young players that play with far more of each of those attributes than the Terps do. 

Yesterday postgame, he lamented about how he didn't see the readiness in his players' eyes prior to tipoff.  Well, Mark, you're getting paid good money to instill that readiness whether the team can find it on their own or not!  This team's demeanor really does mirror that of Turgeon's.  I guess there's something to be said for calmness and keeping a cool head, but I don't know that the Terps could have come out with any less fight for what was probably the biggest game of the season thus far.  I need to see some fire from this group...and not just when things are going in their favor!  So you might want to add maturity to your list as well, terpo.

Yesterday postgame, he lamented about how he didn't see the readiness in his players' eyes prior to tipoff.  Well, Mark, you're getting paid good money to instill that readiness whether the team can find it on their own or not!  This team's demeanor really does mirror that of Turgeon's.  I guess there's something to be said for calmness and keeping a cool head, but I don't know that the Terps could have come out with any less fight for what was probably the biggest game of the season thus far.  I need to see some fire from this group...and not just when things are going in their favor!  So you might want to add maturity to your list as well, terpo.

Funny you mentioned that Mac...I just got done ready the post-game quotes. The rest of you long-term posters in here..please go back and read them, and see if you can decifer and "tone" from those quotes. Personally I didn't like the tone of
A) It was "just their day"
B) Our shots "weren't falling"
C) "They wanted it more" ..how often have we heard that one already? 
D)  "We were always a step slower than them"
.....and a few more that I can't recall right now. If you dont want a must-win game, at home, when u are on bubble, more than the visiting team, then what does that say?? Turg seemed really lackluster in the post-game comments, almost devoid of any emotion..well maybe I'm wrong there, but this isn't the pros these are basically still kids the coach has got to get fired up man! Geez!

Back to duke, after they probalby beat NC, that will be 6 in a row, so if they come out flat like they did vs BC, we have a chance if "our shots decide to fall" that day LMAO. But wait, they weren't really that flat BC just played an inspired game...really that simple.

Somehow we're still 6th in ACC due to NC and FL St both losing today. NC played their asses off in a loss @duke. That was our only hope...duke has now played 2 tough games in a row so maybe, just maybe they come in flat  on Saturday. I hope we don't see another lackluster effort in getting beat to loose balls and outrebounded again. But to some of you at the games, do we even run a legit offensive scheme like a motion, set, traingle, read/react....uh what is it the Terps run? Dunno. I just watch duke/NC cool how they each set up picks and defended them as well. We seem very poor at seeting screens and equally inept at defending them.
   I just hope this is all some part of a Turg master plan to get the D situated before working on the O. I know that's a pipe dream but just hoping anyway. We've got all week to perpare so no excuses for not putting up a decent effort. Did yall see Williams and Shuh-shef-ski BOTH hollaring at the refs all game long. Refreshing, once again....................AHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHH! 

Our defene is actually pretty highly rated as far as shooting percentage and that was the first game we have been outrebounded all season, including the first Duke game. Our problem is that while we are limiting the other team to under 40% and under 35% very often, we are also only shooting around the same ercentage and the other team gets more shots because of our fouls and turnovers. That is the PG. We do not run a fluid half court offense. We run pretty well, but once it is slowed down we are not effective. Also the PG responsibility. I think this team will be fine next year with Howard and Foust on the bench and Allen, Wells and Roddy Peters manning the guard spots. With Wells also playing a little small forward also with Layman, and Mitchel and Len up front with Cleare coming in off the bench. We will ony be 8 or 9 deep next year and be better than the 10 or 11 we play this year. If Cleare isnt careful Dodd will take his spot in the rotation also but I think he gets one more year to come through.


Howard will be a senior so he isn't going anywhere probably, but Faust should really consider transferring to a smaller school where he can be  bigger fish in a smaller pond. HE could go to a smaller school and be a star. eh just isn't good enough and doesn't think and react fast enough for the ACC or any other good basketball conference. I think that is why he reci=omitted after decommitting when GW retired. Somebody got in his ear and let him knoe he wasn't that good and it was a gift for him to be recruited to UMD.     

Gary recruited him and maybe he could have done something with him that Turgeon cannot. Same thing with Howard and even Stoglin. Gary had a plan with the kids he recruited and Turgeon probably does too, and he didn't recruit those guys. They are fine kids and athletes probably, but they ar not Turgeon type players so he doesn't really know how to use them as Gary might have done. I wonder how much Gary has to do with th team? i mean his office is right there. Probably not much. he probably doesnt want to impoise and Turgeon probably wants to stand on his own, but you could do worse than Gary as an advisor and just maybe earn something about controlling the game as a coach.

This team has to go 5-2 the rest of the way to have a sniff at the NCAA tournament. The losses to FSU will turn out to be the ones that kept us out if we don't make it. Both were winnable games that we let slip. This team has the talent to get in, but not the maturity, and I think it all starts at the point guard position. Fortunately this team is set for years to come.

Palm said today that a duke loss means we basically have to win out to go 11-7 in conference. We have no quality wins except NC St and that one is borderline right now. The losses to FL St will loom large...agreed. The ACC will probably only get 4 in this year, 5 @max.....right now Miami, duke, VA , NC and NC St are the 5 in front of us, so we have to displace one of them to get in. Which one who knows, but we probably gotta pass NC or NC ST unless VA collapses. Even after a duke loss, a see a 0% chance of us winning out the rest of the schedule..ain't gonna happen. Even if we play great it'll be around 10-8 best. But a win vs duke and 10-8 would be looking pretty solid.
      The main disappointments this year have been the GW recruits:
Len...I'm sorry but he looks almost exactly like he did last year...same for Faust and P'Howard. We were all speculating how much better these guys would be and it just isn't panning out. Padgett has shown some flashes then disappears. Dez is the best player on the team but has T0's and dumb decisions. I'd like to see even more Aronhalt, Layman and Mitchell, esp Aronhalt if we ever needed a 3 threat it's now. O'Cleare I know he's a freshman but he looks slow, really slow. Here a post from over on the espn board kinda what I wanted to say but this sums it up:

This Maryland team drives me up the wall. We can't make wide open threes, missed layups, we just got out-rebounded by a smaller UVA team, we NEVER get loose balls on the floor. I have no idea how they won against lesser opponents before ACC play. The lack of effort drives me crazy and it makes it nearly impossible to watch. Turge should never let Faust shoot from more than 10 feet away and if he does, grab some pine. Len needs to learn how to catch the ball and grab onto it instead of batting it around like a volleyball. Peshon is next to useless and what in the world is going on with our free throws. The foul line is the same distance away from the basket every time you walk up to it, there's no excuse to shoot as poorly as we have. If anybody has anything to add I'd love to hear it because this team makes it so hard to watch games. Youth is not an excuse, these kids have been playing basketball for years, missing wide open shots didn't get them into Maryland so why are they starting now... 

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 <span style="color: #333333;">As for duke...they can be had. They are not a very big lineup but for that one whatever guy, and Curry is gonna light it up no matter what. But I saw NC repeated expose them drives to the hoop and really rebounded well...really well. That was anyone's game. If there's ever a time for duke to lose one more game before the season ends, this is the time. The red terps rag goes on this Saturday, but my gut tells me we lose a nailbiter..

I'm really expecting much at all. I mean, out offensive plays are just pure garbage. Our biggest strength is to play down low but for some reason coach T has our bigs out at the three point line setting picks for guards who are garbage. Even when Len does get the ball the doesn't reconize he's gonna be double teamed our he ends up facing up and shooting a jump shot. How many times have we seen Shaq and Mitchell get a ball thrown right to them and the fumble it and turn it over. 

I don't think the game will be a blow out. I can see us hanging around down six with five min left or so. We need both our white boys lol to make open three point shots. I don't think coach K will double Len since Plumlee will be guarding him, so the outside shots have got to fall. Has anyone else seen Dez on the court? I didn't last game so hopefully he will show up and score some points this game!


Go Terps! 

*not

I was wondering how we could rank so high in defense and be so cruddy on O...so it's obvious that Turg emphasizes D, he has even made that clear, but does not playing good D require as much player smarts as it does to play good O? Dunno..I mean we come on here and hint sometimes that the players are maybe dumb, at least when it comes to O. If they're smart enough to play that good on D, then they should be smart enough to play O without so many glaring fundamental errors, right?? And I'm not even saying great O, just more sound with the basics.  I don't know...sometimes I think it's wayyyy more coaching than the players.

I guess everyone's all talked-out on this one, but wow the spread is only duke by 5.5. Hmmm, well the red terps rag goes on today. Hope it works......

As I have said before, I don't think a Duke loss hurts us at all and i think the committee looks at the total body of work especially over the last 10 games of the seaon and conference tournaments. As long as we don't look bad in losing this game doesn't hurt us, and in fact i think if we look good and still lose by a few we could actually still gain a litte. i think if you go 10-8 yuo have a better than 50/50 chance, and I think if you do that and win 2 games in the ACC tournament you are in. That makes you 12-9 in conference and gives you 24 wins? No 24 win team in a major conference is being left out, and honestly I think the committee would like to put the terps in if they can. There is a long standing basletball tradition here that ha been missing from the NCAA that I think they would like to see there again. We could get a nod if its close between them and someone else. I also don't hink it is the end of the world if we go 8-8 and win one game in the tournament giving us 21 wins and host an NIT game or two.

This season was totally expected after Stoglin left, though I will admit after seeing Wells play so well early I found myself thinking maybe they did have enough even with no PG. Speaking of PG it looks like Turgeon has pulled his favorite move for troubling players, and Howard is suspended for braking some team rule. Unfortuanate as in the past Howard has had some of his best performances against Duke, but he wasn't helping much anyway lately. I think Turgeon may be trying to open a scholarship spot for a recruit he has on the string and this is how he does it. A little cowardly, but it got Stoglin out of here too, which you know he wasn't upset by. I know some didn't like him, and I thought he had to be reigned in on a team like this ALOT, but this teams defense with his offense, even if they only brought him in to stop scoring droughts, could have made a big impact on the WL record. I think we win the first FSU game, and the UVA game for sure and the Kentucky game probably, with a player like Stoglin used the right way. I don't remamber what he did, but I think it was academic related and not team related so he was gone anyway so its a mute point.

its only a matter of time before Faust meets the same or similar fate and then all of garys scholarship recruits will be gone and Turgeon will have noone but himself to blame for who he has on the court.

Well Skins if we lose to duke that would require a 5-1 finish in acc play. Not happening. I don't think we win the VA game no matter what...they simply hit everything they threw up there, kinda like we did againsst Wake. I do concur BOTH Fl ST games we shoulda had. Those are the key 2 losses right there. I agree on everything about Turg getting rid of these guys. Yeah true a little chicken s%$t but it needs to be done. But once he gets all his own guys, THEN we'll see if all our speculation about him is correct. I know we're gonna see another game of the shuh-chef-ski in the refs faces all game long while Turg sits and throws his hands in the air. THAT is one thing for sure I know I don't like, but then again you can't demand that soemone go against their base personality. 
      I have the red rag on the damage has already been done. Spread at 5.5 wow. Oh wait it's down to 4.5...does someone know something we don't. I'd put it around 10 myself. 

I'm not sure what evidence people have to perpetuate the perception that Coach T can't coach.

What about last year with that depleted roster? EVERYONE said what a great season it was....because they only had 8 scholarship players. Now people have greater expectations, and all of sudden he can't coach. You can't have it both ways. It's like a virus spreading all over this board with conflicting data...evidenced by last year and his time in Texas.

One problem with this team is what I brought up during the last game....GW players getting too many minutes and those players having as many bad plays as they do good. It's not sinister to get your own people to fit your business model. Calling out Turg for managing players that don't follow his directions, or have the abiltiy to do what he envisions, is directly opposite of what should be expected from a coach.

Should he not expect his coaching to be adhered to? Should he just let them keep making the same stupid plays because he inherited them? Stoglin left because Coach T wouldn't let him be bigger than the team. Howard and Allen were suspended in all probability because they broke TEAM rules. You don't to have research too deep to find out what kind of results you get when players think they're bigger than the team.

Another problem is what most here point to, but don't seem to weigh heavily enough imo...POINT GUARD. That same team that over achieved last year had a point guard...STOGLIN.  This team does not, and is a major reason for both FL. St losses, and much of the sloppy play this year.

Turgeon can coach, and this continued craving for him to yell and scream at his players, and or the refs, is an emotional response to a losing team that has no legitmate point guard, and is forced to play two players who don't value ball possession: Howard and Faust. 


Go Terps 22Wins 

Go Terps, beat Duke!