Maryland Basketball: Undefeated? Unbelievable…

#17/14 Clemson Tigers (17-0, 3-0 ACC) at
NR/#25 Maryland Terrapins (14-3, 0-2 ACC)
Comcast Center - College Park, MD

I think I speak for all Maryland fans when I say “What the fuck?” There is no other way to put it. This team has been terrible in conference play the last two seasons, and they’ve had bad games before that, even during the best years. But since I’ve been religiously watching Maryland basketball, and that goes back to the early 90’s, I haven’t seen an offensive performance like that since the probation years. 58 points against Miami? Are you serious?

I really don’t need to say more than has already been said. 15 turnovers and 13 field goals isn’t going to cut it. Having only Mike Jones and James Gist show up every night is going to kill this team. Multiple stretches of seven minutes or longer without scoring is going to win you a grand total of zero conference games. This isn’t Iona or UMKC anymore. You have to have some resemblance of an inside game to win in the ACC. Not a great inside game, but preferably an existent inside game.

The last time I can remember a Gary Williams team not scoring for more than seven minutes at a time was in the 1999 tournament game against St. John’s. They didn’t have a field goal in the final nine or ten minutes of the first half. But they at least woke up and mustered some sort of fight in the second half. Against Miami, there was nothing. Gist was fighting. Jones was the only one hitting shots. Where was the rest of the team? Vasquez was busy acting like a true freshman, rushing up unnecessary threes ten seconds into a possession. By the way, Greivis and I hit the same number of three pointers on Wednesday. Bamble Osby, the only person on this team that can grab a rebound, was kept on the bench for the majority of the second half. Why? Why do we have to see 20 minutes of Will Bowers each game? What has he ever done to warrant more than five minutes off the bench? He can’t jump, he can’t move and he can’t catch or hold onto the ball. And he looks like Muggsy Bogues trying to grab a rebound out there. Eventually, he’s going to have to accomplish something other than being seven feet tall. That’s the only reason he has a jersey on right now. If he was 6’7”, he wouldn’t be playing in the ACC…he’d probably be sitting on the bench at some D-II school. And it is finally time to bench Ekene Ibekwe. Either that, or light a fire under his ass and tell him to give a damn.

Through 17 games, it has become apparent that the starting lineup should look like this: Hayes, Jones, Strawberry, Gist and Osby. Gist and Osby may not be the most talented big men in the league, but they fight hard, they don’t wander outside too much, they don’t settle for awkward jumpers and they know how to box out. Jones and Strawberry are the scorers and they have to be out there (although I’m concerned about Straw…it looked like he was hurt the other night, he wasn’t running like he usually does and seemed very sluggish). Hayes has to be the point guard. He doesn’t take terrible shots and he is much better with the ball than Vasquez. Parrish Brown should be the sixth man because he at least is playing with some heart. Ibekwe should follow him. Then Vasquez. Bowers shouldn’t be allowed off the bench. How in the world do you get outrebounded, at home, by a Miami team with their only scholarship player who averages more than six rebounds a game out with an injury? How???

I’d like to chalk it up as an extremely bad game, and every team is allowed to have a few during the course of a season. But Miami is plain awful, and they didn’t play well either. So I really don’t know what to make of this game. For right now, we’ll count it as an anomaly. We’ll know shortly if it’s a telling sign for the season.

Now to the Clemson Tigers. It hasn’t been pretty the last two years for Maryland against Oliver Purnell’s bunch. In fact, the Tigers have been one of the reasons the Terps haven’t sniffed the NCAA tournament in the past two seasons. And despite losing a couple of key players, the Tigers are 17-0, the only undefeated team in Division 1 basketball. How big of a surprise is this? Well, at the beginning of the season, if you were to ask me to guess the last undefeated team in the country, and you narrowed my choices down to ACC teams that weren’t located in Massachusetts, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina, I still wouldn’t have even thought of the Tigers.

How have they done it? Well, they’ve been playing a bunch bad teams from good conferences and a bunch of half-decent teams from bad conference. In other words, they haven’t really played a tough schedule. They’ve beaten Mississippi State, Minnesota, South Carolina and Georgia, but none of those teams are going dancing in March. They’ve beaten Old Dominion, a team that could surprise some people out of the CAA, but they did so by only four. Their best win may have come against Appalachian State. In November, the Fightin' Paw Prints beat the Mountaineers by 30, the same Mountaineers that beat Virginia later in the season. But even with their soft non-conference schedule, they’ve already won two ACC road games (against FSU and N.C. State…both teams that will be in the bottom third of the league in two months) and they escaped with a last-second win over Georgia Tech at home. So 17-0 is 17-0. They are unbeaten, the only such team in the country, and they are starting to rack up conference victories.

Clemson’s overall stats aren’t going to overwhelm anyone. 77 points a game is good, but not great. A team three point percentage of 34% is below the national averages. They don’t shoot free throws well (61.6%) and the assist/turnover ratio (1.1/1) is not pretty.

Purnell is basically pulling off one of the greatest smoke and mirrors acts in recent memory. For the first time during his tenure at Clemson, Purnell has a deep team. There isn’t a lot of talent on the roster, but there are a lot of players who are good, solid ACC guys. That hasn’t been the case for CU since Rick Barnes left for Texas. There are nine players on this roster that are averaging more than 10 minutes a game. Again, these aren’t guys you are going to see on the All-American rosters, but they fit in Purnell’s scheme and play well enough to get the job done in the ACC.

So far, the nine guys seeing plenty of playing time are producing, which I’m sure makes it easy for Purnell to keep them in the rotation. Some of the names look familiar. Vernon Hamilton (30.1 mpg, 11.6 ppg, 4 apg), Cliff Hammonds (30.4 mpg, 10.5 ppg, 3.6 apg), James Mays (25.3 mpg, 13 ppg, 7.3 rpg) and Sam Perry (17.6 mpg, 5 ppg, 3 rpg) are all still producing for the Tigers. In fact, Hammonds and Hamilton have nearly identical numbers to the ones they put up last season. However, there are two important names most won’t remember. Sophomore K.C. Rivers (26.5 mpg, 15 ppg, 4.4 rpg) and freshman Trevor Booker (23.6 mpg, 10 ppg, 7 rpg) are the two main reasons the 06-07 Tigers are radically different from the 1996-2005 Tigers. Rivers, who did see 23 unspectacular minutes a game last season, has doubled his scoring output this year. In fact, he has scored in double digits in each of Clemson’s first 17 games. I don’t care who you play, that’s impressive. Booker, at 6-7 and 220 lbs is Purnell’s new Sharrod Ford. He’s a banger inside who fights hard for rebounds, does the dirty work, and gets the crowd into the game. The two of them, combined with the four veterans and some other roll players, have turned Clemson from laughing stock to highly ranked in the course of two months.

So how does Maryland win. Well, the mathematician in me says they should try as many threes as possible. If averages balance out, there is no way they should shoot only 22% from the field again, right. Seriously though, Maryland wins by forcing turnovers. The Terps did a good job pressuring Miami into taking bad shots and having bad possessions, but they didn’t create enough fast break turnovers. Clemson is a team, that despite its gaudy record, turns the ball over too much. The Terps need some fast break points to jump start this offense. And someone needs to grab a rebound. Anybody…

Maryland 72
Clemson 69

Elsewhere around the ACC…

It’s the first true ACC weekend, as all 12 teams are in conference play. The record now stands at 8-5 as we continue on…

SATURDAY
NC State at Wake Forest
Two of the three worst teams in the conference. And who ever thought we’d be saying that about two of the Carolina teams in the same season?
Pick: Wake Forest 69, NC State 62

Virginia at Boston College
Virginia is going to be like the Atlanta Falcons. I know it. They are the team that is going to single-handedly mess up my record. They look awful against Stanford, but then play 35 good minutes against UNC before losing a tight one. I don’t know, you figure them out. I’m not taking them on the road.
Pick: Boston College 80, Virginia 69

North Carolina at Virginia Tech
If the Hokies are going to be considered a legitimate contender in the ACC, then what better way to do so than beating the #1 team in the country at home? I think this game is going to be much closer than a lot of people think. The only team that matches up athletically to UNC are the Hokies. Look for a run-and-gun affair that UNC has to pull out in the final few minutes.
Pick: UNC 86, Virginia Tech 79

Florida State at Georgia Tech
Even though this games has all the potential letdown feelings for the Techsters, I have a hard time picking the Noles on the road. A lot of people like this FSU team, but I really don’t see what the fuss is about. They beat Florida, but have looked terrible against everyone else. This one should be a close, but ugly one.
Pick: Georgia Tech 68, FSU 64

SUNDAY
Duke at Miami
Here’s the question we need to start asking. If Duke goes 6-10 in conference play, which is a very real possibility, do they get an invitation to the Dance? If that’s the case, then there is no way they should get an invite. Of course, the NCAA would never allow that. The Dookies could probably go 4-12 and still get invited. This is, by far, the worst Duke team since the 1995 version. That was the year that Coach K had “back-surgery” so he wouldn’t be tainted with Duke’s lousy play that season. Way to go down with the ship, Ratface.
Pick: Duke 77, Miami 64