Maryland Basketball: House of 'Paign

#23/19 Maryland Terrapins (7-0) at
Illinois Fighting Illini (7-0)
Assembly Hall - Champaign, IL
ACC/Big Ten Challenge

Back from Thanksgiving break and I’m ready to forge ahead with a big game for Maryland tonight. First though, some things that happened to me during my mini-vacation. I finally went to see Borat over the week. This may be the worst movie I’ve ever seen. In all fairness, I’ve never seen an Ali G episode or anything else with Sasha Baron Cohen in it. So that may have something to do with it. But I was told by everyone who saw the movie that I didn’t need to see any of Cohen’s previous work to like this film. That may have been true, but I didn’t like the movie anyway. There were only a couple of scenes that were worth laughing at. I’m sure half of the “unintentional” comedy in the movie was staged, especially the scene with Pamela Anderson. And what was the deal with the two naked men wrestling for a good five minutes? If I had known ahead of time that this movie would contain low-grade gay porn, I wouldn’t have gone. I wish I’d seen the new James Bond film. I still have to see that.

On a positive note, I finally got a new job. Which means that this page may be lacking at times. I won’t have as much time to jerk around at work and write stuff for this page. Don’t worry you five loyal readers…I will continue to update, just not as frequently. By the way, if you are the asshole from California that somehow stole my credit card number and ran up 600 dollars worth of leather purchases at Coach.com, I will find you and I will kill you. You’ll be easy to spot, you’ll probably be the only douchbag wearing $600 worth of leather. You may think I’m joking, but I will kill you.

I could rant about Borat and identity theft for a couple of more pages, but I’ll spare everyone. You probably came here to read about Maryland basketball. At least I hope you came here for that reason. The Terps continue their defensive renaissance, which in turn, has fueled their offensive outbursts. This Terps team bears resemblance to the teams from the mid-90’s. Those were the most aesthetically appealing Gary Williams’ teams to watch. It was controlled chaos. No, they didn’t win the national championship like the 2002 version, but they always played exciting games.

The Eric Hayes/Greivis Vasquez combination at point is looking very good. Vasquez is obviously the more dangerous scorer, but what Hayes lacks in scoring he makes up for in ball-control and defense. Mike Jones seems comfortable playing on the perimeter. I would love to see him drive to hoop aggressively once and awhile, but as long as he keeps hitting the treys, I don’t much care. His defense has improved dramatically. I think Jones’ defense is one of the unsung aspects of this 7-0 start. D.J. Strawberry looks much more natural at the three than he did in the backcourt. He is the perfect “tweener”. He does all the cutting and dribble-driving (hey, how did Bill Raftery sneak on to this page…ONIONS!) that Jones refuses to do. He also continues to be the best defender in the conference. The frontcourt of Ekene Ibekwe and James Gist appears to be solid. Gist is still hesitant to play with his back to the basket at times, and Ibekwe still forces off-balance shots from time to time. And their rebounding slips occasionally as well. This is why I’ve been calling for more Bambale Osby. He may not have the quickness in transition that Gist and Ibekwe have, but he won’t get pushed around inside trying to grab a board. The man put in 16 points against a good Winthrop team after being seldom used against Michigan State. Seriously, let’s see more of him.

Maryland is still, in many ways, an unknown team. It is too early to say whether or not this is a tournament caliber team. It’s one thing for Maryland’s up-tempo game to work out of conference, but let’s see what happens when they get into the ACC and play against teams that are used to facing Williams. And by no means should we be saying that Maryland is a potential Final Four team, as one moron from the Baltimore Sun said this past week (Does anyone still read the Sun? After the Ravens fluked their way to the Super Bowl in 2000, I think the Sun’s sports page decided to mail in the rest of the decade). As good as this team may be, and as promising as Vasquez/Hayes look, Maryland is too reliant on the freshmen point guards. Remember last year when everyone and their mothers were sweating Duke (I know this happens every year, but stay with me). I told you that Duke would be lucky to make it past the Sweet 16 because, even with all their talent, they had a freshman point guard running the show. And when pot-smoking Backne went cold in the tournament, Greg Paulus didn’t know what to do. Paulus, along with some bad shooting, cost Duke in March, just as I predicted here. Freshman point guards are the kiss of death. The NCAA has allowed freshman to play since the early 70’s and exactly two freshman point guards have won national championships. Mike Bibby did it with Arizona in 1997 and Gerry McNamara did it with Syracuse in 2003. And both of those teams were so immensely talented with other ball handlers in the backcourt, they were able to overcome their weakness at point. So for all the accolades being thrown at the Terps so far, no one is mentioning that the weakness in this team still lies at point with the two freshmen. Don’t mean to be a downer because I’m really excited about this team, but I think it needs to be said.

Anyway, the Terps managed not to slip up against Winthrop and blew past High Point in their tune-up for tonight. Maryland gets ready to participate in the ACC’s annual beating of the Big Eleven with a true road game against the Illinois Fightin’ Illini featuring Bruce Weber’s Fightin’ Bright Orange Suit. It’s good to see that Maryland is playing on the Champaign campus and at Assembly Hall and not at a “neutral site” like Chicago. A few years ago Maryland had to play Indiana at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis instead of the other Assembly Hall in Bloomington. I hated that. If the Big Ten insists on continuing this series, and if Maryland is going to travel 1,000 miles and play in front of a hostile crowd, why play the game down the road in an NBA arena? We’re not Duke. We shouldn’t be afraid of an out-of-conference road game. Why not play the game on campus? It’s great experience for some of the younger players who will have to make their way to the Dean Dome, Conte Forum and Cameron Arena later this season. So good for Gary to push for the true road game.

That said, it won’t be easy to survive the infamous Orange Krush and one of basketball’s toughest road environments. For those of you not familiar with Assembly Hall, picture Virginia’s University Hall, except the students are a lot closer to the court, the arena is a bit darker and the alumni are into the game much more. Illinois has not lost an out-of-conference game on their home court since 1998 (to George Washington of all teams) and has only lost four conference home games since 1999.

The good news for Maryland is that this Illini team is not the same as the one that has advanced deep into March the last few years. This Illinois team, only two years removed from their national championship game loss to UNC, has had most of their more well known players graduate or move on to the NBA. Deron Williams, Luther Head, James Augustine and Dee Brown are all gone. The only real holdovers are Jamar Smith and Brian Randle, and if I’m correct, neither player should be eligible because they both already graduated from Maryland a couple of years ago. Haha…in all seriousness, Illinois will have trouble matching Maryland’s talent on the floor. Smith and Randle are both coming off injuries. They’ve both only played two games all year. Smith, who is not the 6-9 center that Maryland used to win the ACC championship, is a 6-4 sophomore guard who is Illinois best scorer. In the two games he has played, he’s only played an average of 20 minutes, but has scored 16.5 points. Illinois throws a lot guys on the court. Once Randle gets healthy, the Illini will have 10 players averaging at least 11 minutes a ball game. They only use two seniors and one junior. The rest are sophomores with only freshman seeing any real playing time.

The Illini have a nice four-guard rotation. Along with Smith, Maryland will see Trent Meacham, Chester Frazier and Calvin Brock. Frazier, who is one of the sophomores, will be a beast of a point guard in a couple of years. He’s already averaging 11.6 points and seven assists a game. He still needs to control the ball better, as he turns the ball over almost four times a game, but that comes with age. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why Maryland never recruited Frazier, considering he is from Baltimore. In fact, he’s from the same part of Baltimore that His Holy Juan-ness was from.

The Illini frontcourt is where all the experience is. Warren Carter is their big post presence at 6-9 215. The senior grabs six boards a game and gets the majority of his 11 points a game on put backs and second chances. The Terps will also have to deal with the junior Randle, Shaun Pruitt and freshman Richard Semrau (Weber has used Semrau a lot so far, but it remains to be seen if he’ll get playing time against a real opponent).

Illinois as a team is a lot like Michigan State, except they shoot a lot better. Weber’s teams are always tough on the boards, which is surprising because Weber usually favors a three-guard lineup with two average sized post players. Smith (57%), Meacham (50%) and Brock (47%) all shoot well from the outside. And they shoot much better at Assembly Hall than away from it. During Weber’s brief tenure at Illinois, his teams shoot nearly 10% better from behind the arch when they’re at home as compared to on the road or at a neutral site. So be careful Mike Jones. That good defense will have to continue.

Illinois has not played a tough schedule and has struggled a couple of times. This past week, Illinois escaped at home against Miami Ohio, which is an average MAC team, with a last minute bucket, 51-49. They also narrowly beat Bradley 75-71. For whatever reason, Weber decided to play that game on the road. Bradley is probably the best team they’ve played all season, but we’ll know more about the Illini this week when they play the Terps then go to the desert to play Arizona.

Maryland is going to face a good team from a major conference on the road. Those games are never easy. The Illini should finish somewhere between 3rd and 5th in the Big Ten this year and make the NCAA’s. A win here for Maryland would go a long, long way to getting a similar bid. On a neutral site, Maryland probably wins this game by six or seven. They are very similar to Illinois. They rotate in four guards. Their frontcourt is athletic but undersized. Both teams like to press. Maryland has a bit more experience and a bit more speed than the Illini do, so that should give Maryland the victory. Ibekwe is hurt, and listed as questionable, but he should play. He played against Duke with cracked ribs a couple of years ago, but his sprained ankle could limit his ability in the transition game. Without Ibekwe at full strength, we might see more of Osby, so this minor injury really shouldn’t be a problem. But Assembly Hall is at least an eight-point swing for Illinois and Bruce Weber’s orange blazer, right out of the Paul Schaffer collection, is good enough for five points. So far I’m 3-0 picking Maryland games, so let’s hope that I end up 3-1 after tonight.

Illinois 71
Maryland 67