Maryland Basketball: Flexing Some Muscle

Maryland Terrapins (4-0) vs.
Michigan State Spartans (4-0)
Madison Square Garden - New York, NY
2K Sports College Hoops Classic Final

I’m not sure what team was wearing red last night, but it couldn’t have been the Maryland Terrapins. Ekene Ibekwe scoring 22 in the first half? D.J Strawberry not turning the ball over? The Bizarro Terps offense moving without the ball? What team is this? Where were the turnovers? Where were the rushed shots? Where were the defensive breakdowns?

The Terps looked great. Most of it was their own doing with pressure defense and transition offense. St. John’s didn’t help themselves. But anytime you’re able to blow out a Big East team, some of it is going to be good play and some of it will be the other team helping you with bad play. The Red Storm, despite having a veteran roster, made a bunch of terrible passes and had a bunch of wasted possessions. And they’re not much of an offensive threat when they play well. So I don’t think we learned much about the Terps defense.

However, the Terrapins offense looked very good against a top defensive team. The Terps moved without the ball and executed the baseline flex offense better than they have the past three years. Add in the beautiful transition points, and all of a sudden they look like a team that could easily put up 80 against any team in the country. Even more importantly, the Terps actually hit down open shots from the outside, making Ibekwe and James Gist a little more dangerous in the interior.

Back to the flex offense for a second. I don’t have the time now to explain the particulars of Gary’s flex offense. There are basically three main tenants to the system. The first goal is to get the ball inside to a cutter, not entirely different from the Princeton offense. But instead of running successions of backdoor cuts, the entry passes and cutters can come from anywhere (and any position, since theoretically, in a true flex offense all positions can be used interchangeably). If the cutters are covered, which usually happens when an opponent plays zone, the cutting motion to the interior should free up at least one player on the outside for open shots. So the second goal is to look for the open three. If the cut isn’t there, or the easy outside shot isn’t there, the third option is to wait for a defensive breakdown with fundamental passes and good ball handling. You don’t have to be the tallest team, or the quickest team, but you have to be able to execute.

In the past three seasons the intricacy of Maryland’s flex has been lost. The problem isn’t the first goal. The Terps have had plenty of good cutters from John Gilchrist to Nik Caner-Medley to Strawberry to Mike Jones. Opponents realized this and if the Terps were having success going inside, then they would switch to a zone. This is where the problem came in.

Against a zone defense, the flex offense is perfectly situated to get open looks from the outside. You take a cutter from the corner, have him head towards the basket, ball fake towards the cutter (a necessity in flex offense, even if is effective only for a split second), have the zone collapse on him, and bring a shooter to where the cutter was on the outside. He should be open. The system is designed to take advantage of good shooters, especially big men who can step outside and drain it. Maryland’s problem was the terrible outside shooting. Teams knew they couldn’t hit, so they’d sit in zone, wait for the miss, and rebound. If Jones happened to be hot from the outside, they’d put a man on him and zone the rest of the team. If he wasn’t hot on a particular evening, they’d play straight zone.

The Maryland players, not being complete idiots (except for Chris McCray), realized they couldn’t shoot from the outside, and realized they couldn’t get decent cutters against the zone. So they had to resort to the third goal, which is good ball movement and ball handling to create a defensive breakdown. But after Steve Blake graduated, the Terps were left with no one who could sufficiently move the ball and no one on the team was willing to move around much without it. So the flex offense went nowhere. The offense basically revolved around one or two players trying to make something happen while the rest of the team stood around and watched. The Terps did average a ton of points the last few years, but only did so by using transition defense and quick possessions. The more possessions they got, the more opportunities they got. The team was wild, but not efficient.

Last night however, the flex offense was back. It was beautiful. The unsung hero of the night was Gist. His initial cut to the hoop drew defenders and usually left the second cutter, or the post player (there must always be one player near the low-post in Gary’s flex) wide open. In most cases, this player was Ibekwe, which explains most of his 22 points. And when Jones started getting hot from the perimeter, it was all over. St. John’s couldn’t stop the cuts and inside play with man-to-man defense (despite having the height advantage) and they could leave Jones, Strawberry and Eric Hayes alone outside, so they couldn’t play zone. Add in the fact that the Terps finally have a couple of pass-first point guards for the first time since Blake, this offense has all the makings of being dangerous in conference play. The flex offense I saw last night was the flex offense I last saw in 2003.

Now, it’s easy to get carried away. Remember two years ago at this time Maryland was blowing out highly-ranked Memphis. It didn’t translate at the end of the season to a tournament bid. And it’s not as if St. John’s is the greatest team out there. It was a good test, and Maryland passed with flying colors. Now they have to do it again. The flex is much more effective against teams that have never seen it. Against coaches that Williams has faced a lot (Prosser, Hewitt, Ratface), the flex has to run almost flawlessly. Also, the Terps aren’t going to shoot 50% from the floor every night. They’ve got to prove they can win with defense too. They haven’t done that in a long time.

Next up in the final of whatever tournament this is are the Michigan State Spartans. Most analysts are expecting this to be a down year for MSU. I’m not sure why. They’re young, but not any younger than several teams in the Top 25 (Duke, Memphis, Georgia Tech and Texas, a team they just defeated, to name a few). No, they don’t have Kevin Durant or Greg Oden, but freshman Raymar Morgan is one of the better young players in the country. In his heads-up against Durant, Morgan put in 18 against the Longhorns and picked up five boards. Not bad at all.

Michigan State is led by junior guard Drew Neitzel. Netizel hit the game-winning shot against Texas with 2.4 seconds to go. He’s a smart player, who plays within the offense and doesn’t turn the ball over. He plays with a bunch of sophomores in the front court that are almost indistinguishable from one another. Like any typical Tom Izzo team, MSU has a bunch of undersized forwards that fly towards the ball and the rim. They may be a bit smaller than most, but they make up for it with athleticism. Think Mo Peterson. Izzo combines his undersized forwards with a big awkward center. Paul Davis played that role the last few seasons. It’s now being filled by gawky Goran Suton (with a name like Goran, you know he’s going to be big and lumbering). Suton’s role is to clean up the mess created by forwards Morgan, Marquise Gray and Drew Naymick.

Michigan State’s offense is never pretty, and they don’t have many great shooters. But as usual, they’re aggressive on the boards and play airtight defense. Izzo teaches rebounding better than any coach in the country (his players often practice in football gear). Those second and third chances the Terps got inside last night won’t be there in this game. The outside shots will be contested a little bit more. And the transition offense will be much tougher to get started.

The problem for the Spartans is the same problem that plagued St John’s last evening. Even against a below-average defense like Maryland’s, the Spartans cannot win a shootout. So if the Terps get an early run like they did against the Johnnies, then MSU will have a world of a time trying to catch up. Like St. John’s, they’ll press, and their usual patient offense will become sloppy. Then the Terps will be able to run. If MSU gives Maryland a tough first half, then Maryland will press and make mistakes. Instead of turnovers, we’ll see forced shots. Those forced shots will allow MSU to avoid Maryland’s pressure defense and settle into their offense a little more easily. I think we’ll see a much closer game for Maryland against the Spartans than we did last night.

Maryland 71
Michigan State 65