Maryland Basketball: Fighting Mad!

Notre Dame Fighting Irish (5-1) vs.
#23/19 Maryland Terrapins (8-0)
Verizon Center - Washington, DC
BB&T Classic

Looks like Maryland basketball is back. Someone put Ratface on notice please. Now you know me. I’m not one to get overly excited about one game or one win. But let’s look at the facts. Maryland won without Ekene Ibewke. They won in a game that their other senior leader, D.J. Strawberry, did next to nothing. They won, on the road, in a very tough environment against a good team from a power conference. In fact, they won in a building that no team outside of the Big Ten had won in since 1998. And they won while enduring a 12-minute stretch in which they scored a total of 10 points. Maryland won their game at Illinois while underperforming and undermanned. The Terps found a way to scratch out a win. That’s impressive.

Boom Osby, as I said at the beginning of the season, has the potential to be a terrific low post player. This is something Maryland has lacked. If he didn’t prove his ability against Illinois, then I’m not sure which game you were watching. An outstanding performance from the New Mexico transfer. Greivis Vasquez looked like anything other than a freshman point guard. And the best defense of the game, other than Vasquez’s effort, was applied by Mike Jones. The switch has finally clicked at both ends for Jones.

I already talked about it, but the reason Maryland is now 8-0 is because their defense and outside shooting has improved. The defensive improvement I can understand. Defense requires a complete team effort. All five guys need to do their job. The chemistry simply wasn’t there the past two years on defense. Guys like Strawberry would bust their butts trying to create a big play while guys like Chris McCray stood around watching.

What I can’t figure out is how the outside shooting all of a sudden go better. Yes, the flex offense is moving better (see my UMD vs. Michigan State post for further details) and that creates open outside shots. But the Terps problem the last two seasons wasn’t getting good looks, it was knocking them down. Maybe there’s something I’m missing. I just don’t understand how basically the same cast of characters can dramatically raise their shooting percentages across the board. If anything, I’d say the shot selection this season is just as bad, if not worse than it was the past couple of years. But the shots are going down. Maybe this won’t last. I still need to see more of this team, and then I’ll be able to figure out if there’s something fundamentally different or if the Terps shooters have finally run in to a bit of luck. Either way, I’m not complaining. I’m just a bit nervous that the team could resort back to their old shooting percentages later in the year.

The ultimate shooting test will come today. It’s time for Maryland’s annual trip to the Verizon Center for the BB&T Classic. Only this year there will be no game against George Washington. And it’s no longer a tournament. I thought the whole point of playing in this thing was so we could play a local team and a national ranked team in the span of two days. If we wanted to play Notre Dame, and I don’t know why we would, why don’t we just schedule a home and home? If Maryland’s going to play in this Classic, it had better be a two day event and one of the teams they play better have the word George somewhere in their name.

At any rate, Maryland never plays will in the BB&T. Usually it’s because they can’t shoot. No matter how good or bad Maryland’s shooting percentages are, they get a whole lot worse after their trip into the District. This is another one of those things I can’t understand. If the Terps can go to MSG and other spacious NBA style arenas and have decent shooting games, why can’t they ever do it in D.C.? Again, this is something I’ll have to look into when I get the time. If the Terps shooting prowess this season is a fluke, this game will expose it. If this team is legit from three land, this game will prove it.

Now to the opponent. The Terps trade one angry, culturally insulting mascot for another one. From Fighting Illini to Fighting Irish. I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time on Notre Dame or this post. It is Sunday and there’s football to be watched. The Irish are basically no better or no worse than St. John’s. This is a mediocre to below average Big East team that probably won’t make the tournament. However, like St. John’s, if your team has an off day and they play well, they have the talent to win. This may not be a great team from a power conference, but it’s still a team from a power conference. This won’t be Florida A&M or High Point.

The Irish have put up 85 points a game. They have done this against radically inferior competition (Indiana-Purdue-Fort Wayne, Lafayette, The Citadel, Lehigh and Winston-Salem State). The only decent team they played is responsible for their one loss. The Irish only managed 69 points while getting beat by Butler. In Notre Dame’s defense, Butler has beaten everybody so far, including Indiana, Gonzaga, Tennessee and the Boston Celtics. So losing by two to Butler isn’t a terrible defeat.

So the stats for Notre Dame are severely inflated. They currently have four players averaging over 12 points a game. However, in their loss to Butler, only two of these players matched their season averages. Russell Carter is their 6-4 senior guard and the best shooter on the team. He averages 15 points, 5 boards and converts 43% of his threes. One of his two other back court mates is Colin Falls. Falls is a 6-5 senior who puts in 13 a game and has a beautiful 5/1 assist/turnover ratio. He leads the team in three-pointers taken and hits 40.5% of them. These are pretty much the only two players Maryland will have to concern themselves with. Notre Dame’s big men are stiffs. Luke Zeller is so awkward he can barely manage 18 minutes a game (which is probably good for the Irish since he can’t score or rebound…several guards average more boards a game than he does). Rob Kurz can board but is not a scoring threat despite his 15 points a game (most of those came against IPFW and Winston-Salem). He only put in seven points against a much smaller Butler team. The only real bench threat is freshman tweener Luke Harangody. Harangody did have a good performance off the bench against Butler, and he can be a threat inside scoring and rebounding. Why he isn’t starting, I don’t know.

So let’s see, a three-guard rotation, a team built on outside shooting and a refusal to go to the bench and play more than seven players a game. Sounds like Ratface. No wait, it’s Ratface Junior. Former Coach K assistant Mike Brey is still somehow in charge in South Bend despite running the program into the ground. It appears as if the Coach K movement in college basketball is thankfully on its last legs. Quinn Snyder finally got the pink slip at Mizzou. Tommy Amaker is almost certain to get the axe at the end of this season at Michigan. And if things don’t turn around for Brey, he’ll probably have to put that expensive Duke degree to use somewhere else. Now you see why Downtrodden Johnny Dawkins and Floor-Slapper Extraordinaire Steve Wojojehcosnkhsiahaski aren’t getting jobs anywhere else. Snyder, Amaker and Brey have set Ratface assistants back ten years. Anyway, expect to see a ton of that stupid half-court defensive hedging crap that K pulls along with a bunch of transition threes by the Irish. Try as Mike Brey might, the real reason he can’t duplicate his mentor’s success is because he doesn’t get the calls. You can’t be a tenth place team in the Big East and expect to get Ratface type calls.

This is a big game for Maryland. First, it’s another opportunity to get a win against a power conference team. It just so happens that the tournament committee loves that kind of thing. Second, barring some kind of unforeseen loss, a win would give the Terps an undefeated non-conference slate. Which means all Maryland would have to do is go 8-8 in conference in order to get an NCAA invite. All they would have to do is hold serve at home. I think this team is capable of that. Pound the ball inside, get timely shots from Mike Jones, and wear out the shallow Notre Dame bench and Maryland should come away with a win.

Maryland 78
Notre Dame 66

Elsewhere in the ACC…

You’re kidding me. It’s already time to start talking about conference games. Ugh, I hate this expansion. Worst…Move…Ever! I’m so glad we brought in teams like Miami to carry ACC football because teams like Wake Forest were never going to do it (*eye roll*). Did anyone watch the conference championship game yesterday? If you were the average American, or even average ACC fan, you probably didn’t. The whole reason the conference expanded was to get an ACC Championship game in football. Well, that hasn’t worked out so well. The stands were apparently half full in Jacksonville yesterday. The two teams that played in the game were already in the conference pre-expansion. The game featured zero touchdowns. That’s right, I scored the same amount of TD’s that Georgia Tech and Wake did. And the TV ratings were miniscule. I’m so glad all that was worth killing the round robin basketball schedule and adding a team 1,000 miles away in a market that doesn’t pay attention to college sports. Way to go ACC!

On a positive note, it was another ACC victory in the ACC/Big Ten Non-Challenge. What is that, 20 years in a row? Maybe it’s time to play another conference. I would love to see a Big XII or Big East Challenge every year. In fact, the ACC is playing a de facto ACC/SEC Challenge the next couple of weekends. Yesterday, UNC beat Kentucky, Clemson demolished South Carolina and Georgia beat Wake by one. Today Florida State plays their annual game with Florida. Next weekend Miami plays Mississippi State and Georgia Tech plays Vanderbilt. I’ll be interested to see how those results turn out.

I enter the ACC schedule with a 3-1 record. You all know how this works. I pick, you read.

Sunday
NC State at Virginia
Despite their comeback win over Michigan, the Wolfpack are still the worst team in this conference. The Cavs should rebound from their close loss to Purdue and jump to the top of the standings. Just remember what I said earlier, Virginia will make the NCAA tournament this year.
Pick: Virginia 77, NC State 60

Georgia Tech at Miami
The Hurricanes will battle NC State for conference ineptitude. Georgia Tech may not be as good as I originally thought. They looked terrible against Penn State. It still seems that Tech is looking for a player to take the majority of the shots from the outside. Since B.J. Elder left, they haven’t found anyone to replace his clutch shooting. The Jackets may have one of the better front courts in the conference and should uglyball their way out of South Beach with a win.
Pick: Georgia Tech 69, Miami 58