Maryland Basketball: The Foggy Bottom Boys

#21/17 Maryland Terrapins (5-1) vs.
#19/20 George Washington Colonials (4-0)

MCI Center – Washington, DC
BB&T Classic

Before we get to the local showdown tonight, I have some unfinished business to take care of. I forgot to offer picks for the two ACC games last night. In my defense, how was I supposed to know that the ACC schedule started the first week of December. Even though the ACC now includes 25 teams, I figured we could at least wait until later in the month to get the conference slate going.

That said, I meant to pick both Georgia Tech and Duke last night. Conveniently for me, they both won. So I started 2-0 in the conference predictions. I know it’s late, but did you really expect me to pick either UVA or VTech on the road. Neither of them had a chance. What’s that you say? Virginia Tech almost beat Duke? At Duke? Get outta here. The Dookies this season are clearly the best team that has ever taken the floor since James Naismith put up the peach baskets. You’re telling me a team that was picked to finish no better than eighth in the conference pushed the “#1” Dookies (quotation marks definitely needed) to the brink.

That’s exactly what happened last night. Instead of watching Sunday Night Football, I decided to check out the second half of the VTech-Duke game. Imagine my surprise when I saw the Hokies up a point at the half. Imagine my surprise that the Hokies trailed by 11 in the last four minutes, only to storm back with a 12-0 run that included what appeared to be a last second tip-in by Coleman Collins. Unfortunately, Tech left 1.6 seconds on the clock (actually, they left 1 second on the clock, but that home-court officiating gave the Devils some extra time…what else did you expect, it’s Dook). That left just enough time for Sean Dockery to make a lucky, and I emphasize lucky, heave from half-court for the win.

So after getting a fluke win in what should have been an easy game, the Devils not only remained number one in the coaches poll (AP comes out later today), they actually increased their lead over Texas and UConn. HUH? Was it just me, or did Ratface’s bunch of floor-slappers get outplayed by a mediocre Hokie team…AT HOME? Clearly Duke can longer be considered a serious contender. In fact, I’m already taking them out of that contender category after I barely put them in there to begin with in my season preview. I’ll say it again. If Redick has an off-shooting night (which happened on Sunday) or Shelden Williams gets in foul trouble, how is Duke going to win consistently? These new freshmen nerds are nice, but they aren’t going to perform down the stretch in key ballgames. Paulus, McRoberts, and whoever aren’t going to get it done for K. Lee Melchionni, now known as the requisite “Duke white stiff” since Shavlik Randolph went pro, has completely disappeared. Plus, it has become obvious how to beat the Devils. Any team that muscles up and plays physical has a great chance to win. Red-dick is a pussy. He flops whenever anyone breaths on him. And his game gets completely out-of-whack whenever a defender bumps him a few times during a possession. And all this depth I keep hearing about doesn’t seem to actually be there. Ratface is back to playing six or seven guys again. The Dookies are safe after an absolute stroke of luck this week, but they will be exposed as frauds if the game last night didn’t already prove it. And it will happen soon.

Speaking of bad games against overmatched opponents, who happened to catch the Maryland game last Wednesday? Sure, the final score looked nice. But down 15 points to Minnesota in the first half? To a Gophers team that had only nine players dressed and only seven scholarship players healthy. To a team that had it’s two leading scorers, including All-Big Ten forward Vincent Grier, on the bench in street clothes. To a Minnesota team that had its remaining leading scorer injured in the first half. Yikes.

While it didn’t take a Dockery-esque shot to get the win, Maryland still struggled against a team they should have blown out. If it wasn’t for the hot-shooting Mike Jones (WHO!), a double-double from Travis Garrison (at least I think that was Garrison, I didn’t recognize him right away since he was actually trying to play inside) and some well-timed jacket-throwing, ref-yelling tactics from Dan Monson, the Terps could have easily lost.

Caner-Medley continues his downhill progression. Chris McCray was conspicuously absent for most of the game. Other than one burst in the second half, Strawberry went missing as well. Ibekwe and Gist were quiet. Will Bowers continues to wonder why he is playing division one basketball. And Gary goes on yelling at the team to no avail. Make no mistake about it; this was an ugly win for Maryland.

Now the Terps get a stern test from THE George Washington University. Lately, Karl Hobbs and his team from the depths of Foggy Bottom have played the Terrapins well. The Colonials have won three of the last five meetings, including a 101-92 win in the BB&T final last season. As it has been reported all week, neither team really wants to play this game. Maryland doesn’t want to risk losing another game to a local team, which can really hurt recruiting. GW gave up two scheduled home games against weaker competition to play in this one (translation: gave up two easy wins to play UMD). But give Hobbs and GWU credit. At least they have the backbone to annually challenge the Terps. That is unlike another gutless school I know that will go unnamed, but is located in the Georgetown section of DC and happens to play its home games in the very same building that the BB&T is played at. I’ll just have to leave you guessing about that unnamed team’s identity, I don’t want to start finger-pointing.

During last year’s loss, the Terps clearly overlooked GW as their ACC schedule was looming in the background. As they usually do at the Phone Booth, the Terps played sloppy transition basketball and shot poorly from beyond the arc. GW forced 18 turnovers and scored 31 points off of the Terps’ mistakes. The Colonials also shot 10-14 from 3-point-land. T.J. Thompson, who is no longer with the team, scored 27. The other initial wonder, J.R. Pinnock, put in 22 of his own. Pinnock is averaging 14.5 pts and 5 boards a game so far in 2005. Pinnock, Thompson and Carl Elliott were impossible for the Terps to stop in transition.

Along with Pinnock and Elliott, Mike Hall is still in the District and leads the team in scoring. The 6-8 forward averages almost 18 points and 8 boards through four games. And recently returning from a three game suspension is Nana Bana Fo-fana Pops Mensah-Bonsu. Pops was the player who drew all the double teams last season during the Colonials run in the A-10 and one game in the NCAA tournament. His presence was the reason that Elliott, Pinnock and Hall were freed up to have great seasons.

What will happen tonight? Well for one thing, it is time to put away the abacuses, because there will be a lot of scoring. GW still plays that reckless and relentless style of play that hurt Maryland last year. Maryland is going to have match-up problems all over the place. Who stops Mensah-Bonsu? If you double-team him, what about Hall inside? Can Caner-Medley keep up with either Hall or Omar Williams, another 6-9 forward? Sure Strawberry can shut down Elliott, but can McCray be left alone with Pinnock? And if the Terps fall behind, can Jones be trusted to enter the game and shoot Maryland back into it knowing that he is going to be abused on the defensive end by whoever he is assigned to guard?

Offensively, Maryland is going to have the same problems. How are the Terps going to get inside points? Garrison isn’t going to have another 18 and 10 game with Pops and Hall inside. Mensah-Bonsu, when healthy and in shape (which he isn’t right now after sitting for three games), is one of the best shot-blockers in the nation. Hall is no slouch either. Elliott is like a carbon copy of Strawberry on the defensive end. He is able to clamp down on someone, probably McCray, and guard him alone all night. Pinnock and Williams and sophomore Maureece Rice are beatable, especially around the perimeter. But we all know how well the Terps are shooting from the outside. And unlike against Arkansas and Minnesota, the Terps aren't going to have superior depth. Karl Hobbs uses an eight to nine-man rotation of very capable players.

Despite my belief that GW is massively overrated, and may not make it out of the A-10 this year, they match-up very well against Maryland. Unless Ibekwe and Gist help out Garrison inside, and Caner-Medley actually shows up in a big game (unlikely), I fear we are going to watch a repeat of the game a season ago. The only way Maryland can win this one is if they slow the game a bit to cut down on turnovers and the Colonials transition game. Unfortunately, that isn’t Gary and Maryland’s style, so don’t count on it happening

The George Washington Univ. 93
Maryland 84