Maryland Basketball: Dook Side Effects Include - Chest Pain, Nausea, Vomiting And Hatred For Jon Scheyer’s Ugly Ass Face

#4/3 Duke Blue Devils (16-1, 4-0)
Maryland Terrapins (12-7, 2-2)
Comcast Center - College Park, MD

You know what’s not fun? Acute bronchitis. I wouldn’t suggest getting it. Not only do you cough non-stop, but the medication puts you in a permanent fog. The minute I stepped off the plane after returning from Southern California, the cough that had been a slight bother for about a month blew up into a full-fledged pain in the butt (pain in the chest, really). The hacking cough comes complete with fever and other such nonsense.

Needless to say, updating this page wasn’t an immediate concern. Waking up in the morning and getting out of bed took considerable effort. All the rest of my energy was dedicated to staying awake at work for eight hours on codeine. Good times.

Anyway, since my vacation, then prolonged illness absence, we’ve seen the least interesting Super Bowl since the Ravens-Giants monstrosity in 2001 take shape. The game is already such a forgone conclusion and features two teams I care so little about that I may not be inspired to even post a preview of the game later in the week. I guess the Giants-Pats matchup is better than the dreaded Cowboys-Pats possibility that was taking shape in October and November, and certainly better than the Favre-Pats game that looked likely last week. Still, it’s not going to be close. It’s not going to be entertaining. It’s not going to be remotely interesting. A fitting way to end one of the worst NFL seasons in recent memory.

That means the transition to college basketball can officially begin. The last time I posted was a day before Maryland’s game against Wake Forest. The Terps were 10-7 and didn’t have a conference win at the time. Maryland took care of business in a must-win situation against a bad team with an uninspiring, but essential victory over the Deacs.

Then came a test, on the road, against the #1 team in the country. I’m not sure that even the most hardcore Maryland fan could have expected the Terps to knock off North Carolina. I was just hoping that they’d keep it competitive for awhile. But, in typical Gary Williams fashion, just when you count a Maryland team down and done, they come out like gangbusters and earn themselves the biggest win of the young college basketball season. And while I realize a win like this doesn’t excuse the losses to Ohio and American, you have to hope that a win over North Carolina will at least cancel those losses out down the road.

Watching that game last weekend, it was very easy to forget that Maryland had seven losses and UNC was the undisputed #1 team in the country. Maryland not only beat the Heels, they outplayed them. With the exception of a five to six minute stretch in the second half, Maryland was the better team the entire game. In an interesting move, Gary did away with his patented flex offense. He relied simply on attacking the low post. The plan was simple: get Tyler Hansbrough out of the paint temporarily by flashing James Gist or Boom Osby to the top of the key, have a guard dump the ball inside before Hansbrough could recover, then hope the inside move of the post player was good enough to score. Remarkably simple and efficient. It exposed Carolina’s lack of depth inside and it exposed the inability of Carolina’s guards to play any help defense whatsoever. And if it wasn’t for a couple of brain farts by Greivis Vasquez and Cliff Tucker on defense in the middle of the second half, the game wouldn’t have been all that close. Anyway, it was a great win. If nothing else, it at least gives Maryland fans something to hang their hats on if the team continues to struggle the rest of the season.

With that being said, it’s time I make sure that I’m stocked up with codeine and maybe some penicillin as well, because the Dookies make their annual trip to College Park. Don’t let them get too close, being vastly overrated is contagious.

Before we get to that, I will say that Dook is doing better than I thought they’d be. That’s not saying much, considering that I thought Dook would be a 10-loss team this season, but there’s still plenty of time for that. As usual, the Dookies out-of-conference schedule was suspect. The best team they’ve played this season has been Pittsburgh…and surprise…they lost that game despite Pitt being without their two best players (And we all know how bad Pitt really is. They’re a 2nd round exit waiting to happen as usual. Poor Jamie Dixon, maybe one year he’ll spend more time coaching than gelling his hair). Their best win came against Wisconsin. The Badgers are like Pitt’s long lost cousin from the Big 10. Again, Wisconsin is a 2nd round exit waiting to happen. It’s a good win, sure. But nothing to brag about.

This team is overachieving because Ratface has finally decided to go back to the way he used to coach. I’m not talking about his decision back in 1995 to abandon his team with a “back injury” because they weren’t going to the tournament. I’m talking about actually using some depth and playing more than seven players a game. Of course, we’ve been down this road before. After Backne’s best team got bounced by LSU two seasons ago because the entire starting lineup was playing nearly 40 minutes a game, Ratface started the 2006-07 campaign by using his entire lineup from November to January. But for whatever reason, when the ACC schedule started getting tougher, the Dook rotation started shrinking. Almost like magic, the Nerds lost six of their last nine conference games. Two of those losses came at the hands of Maryland (to be fair, Maryland was a better team than the Dookies last season).

I say this as a warning to all the Dook bandwagon frauds. The same thing is going to happen again this season. Ratface just doesn’t have the ability or the trust in his bench to stick with them after January. He hasn’t done it since the late 90’s. Over the past decade, Dook’s shooting percentage has gone steadily downhill month by month until reaching rock bottom in March. I’ve explained why in the past. It’s rather obvious. Ratface plays his starters too much, their legs get tired, and by late February, they can’t hit three’s with any consistency. And because Dook’s inside game has always revolved around one player at a time instead of several big men, all opponents have had to do in past seasons is get The Rapist or Requisite Dook White Stiff #312 in foul trouble and wait for the jump shots to stop falling. This happens right about this time every season.

In the past couple of games against Clemson and Virginia Tech, Ratface has already started to tighten his evil grip around his rotation. The overall numbers still look good because they are still being skewed by the out-of-conference games against cupcakes. But you and I both know that these generically-named, non-threatening guys like Nolan John Smith and Taylor Bob King and Lance Joe Thomas are going to see less and less playing time over the next few weeks.

Dook’s starting five is good, but they aren’t Carolina good. Make no mistake about, this conference is still UNC and everybody else. Maryland matches up much better with the Nerds than they do North Carolina. A similar game plan from the contest last weekend should yield even better results. At least Carolina had Hansbrough. Who scares you if you are Gist or Osby? New White Stiff? Freakishly Tall White Stiff? Unless Gerald “Swing Low, Sweet Elbow” Henderson decides to play dirty and the refs let him get away with it (which is always a possibility), who stops Gist and Osby if Maryland makes an effort to get the ball inside? The answer is no one. As usual, Maryland’s guards have the quickness to stay with the Dookies outside, and the Terps are more physical inside. If the refs allow the Dookies to turn this in to thug ball (Like they’ve done against FSU and Virginia Tech…and like they’ve done so many times throughout the last few seasons), then Dook can hack and whack Maryland’s big men and they have a chance. But if this is an evenly called game, Maryland should pose matchup problems across the board in both height (Gist, Osby, Braxton Dupree) and speed (Vasquez, Tucker and Landon Milbourne).

If I’m Maryland, the only thing that concerns me is the New White Stiff’s versatility. He has proven to be a valuable weapon both inside and outside. Covering him down low isn’t the problem, but moving outside with a 6’8” forward does present some matchup problems. Hopefully Gist will be allowed to cover him, since guarding outside never seems to be too much of an obstacle for him. But that also means Vasquez and Milbourne are going to have to guard Half Nelson and Sweet Elbow and the other 6’4” slashers a little tighter than they’re used to without Gist inside all the time. I think this team is up for the defensive challenge. Heck, defense hasn’t been the problem this season. Consistent scoring has been. However, like I mentioned above, the solution for that should be as easy as it was last weekend. And please Gary, when you have the opportunity, press the living daylights out of the Human Turnover Machine. I know his number are supposedly better this year, but he’s still only a few months away from having one of the worst seasons a starting point guard has ever had in the history of the game. You don’t change overnight.

So…final score? You know me, I don’t pick against the Terps when these bunch of Floor-Slapping stiffs come through the doors. It’s the only time all season when you can call me a true optimist.

Maryland 73
Duke 71