Maryland Basketball: The Tall And Short Of It

Maryland Terrapins (3-0) vs.
#5/6 Michigan State Spartans (2-0)
The Milk House - Orlando, FL
Old Spice Classic - 1st Rd.

As it seems every season, Maryland basketball season starts just as I’m about go on my annual Thanksgiving vacation. So I usually don’t have the opportunity to fully dedicate a long post to Maryland at the beginning of the season. Let’s see how long I can go here as we take a look at Gary Williams’ 2008-09 Maryland Terrapins.

Backcourt:
This is obviously the strength of the team. Because of the lack of size inside, Maryland will be forced to start three guards this season. That wouldn’t bother me, since I think that three guards is the best way to go in today’s NCAA, except the Terps forwards are so bad, I’m not sure what difference that will make. Greivis Vasquez and Eric Hayes will once again man the backcourt. Cliff Tucker is currently starting at the “3”. Adrian Bowie and Sean Mosley are excellent complimentary players coming off the bench. Either or both of those two could sneak into the lineup at any time. Likely, you could move Bowie/Mosley to the point, Hayes to the two and Vasquez to the three. Or just sub either Bowie/Mosley to the point for Hayes. There are a lot of options, and all five players are legit major conference guards.

Frontcourt:
As exciting as the guards are for Maryland, the frontcourt is equally scary. As a Maryland fan, it’s not pretty to look at. The losses of James Gist and Boom Osby don’t just leave the Terps with a gaping hole at forward. It might as well be a black hole, out of which no talent escapes. Right now, Landon Milbourne is playing power forward. On a typical Maryland team, or most typical ACC teams, Milbourne is a true three. He also would be a great sixth man. His defense is nowhere near good enough to be an everyday starter. Braxton Dupree is currently the center, but his game is not developed enough on either end. His footwork is poor and despite losing weight, he is still out of shape. The most well-rouned big man may actually be Dino Gregory, but he is too small (both in height and width) to play center in the ACC. Dave Neal and Jin Soo Kim are going to see significant playing time, which tells you how poor the state of the Maryland frontcourt is. There is help coming next season with Jordan Williams and James Padgett, but that won’t help Maryland now.

Bench:
Again, Mosley and Bowie are great options off the bench. I actually think that the Terps would be wise to start Bowie at point, shift Hayes and Vasquez up a position, and have Tucker be the sixth man. As it stands, Mosley and Bowie are good guys to rotate into the lineup. Gregory looks pretty good early on as well. Neal and Kim are good for five minutes a piece, but they are playing way too much right now. The Terps also have Steve Goins, an extremely raw, but intriguing center from Chicago. Not sure how much time he will see. Gary seems to like him, but he doesn’t like playing true freshmen.

What we’ve seen so far:
First the positive. Tucker is quickly becoming one of my favorite players. His ball-handling needs improvement. But he’s excellent on the defensive end. He has a wide range of moves on the offensive side. He is too quick to be guarded by a tradition small forward, but too tall and has too large a reach to be guarded by a two. He is not afraid to drive the hoop. He can shoot pretty well from outside. He is ahead of the curb for a Sophomore.

Vasquez is obviously going to be the go-to-guy for the season. I have no problem with that since he is the easily the most proven scorer on the team. I had a problem with it last season when Gist was still around and there were several games that Vasquez refused to pass him the ball. Vasquez should average anywhere from 16-20 points a game. If he doesn’t Maryland had no chance.

I’ve like the defensive effort so far. I’ve liked the rotation, at least in the backcourt, implemented by Williams. He is clearly trying to figure out what he has in Bowie, Tucker, Mosley, Dupree, Gregory and Kim. Hopefully Neal’s and Kim’s minutes will decrease as the season goes along. I don’t mind the eight-man rotation with an occasional Neal and Kim appearance.

Now the negatives. Let’s start with the Vermont game. If Vasquez didn’t do anything, no one else on the team wanted to do anything. Williams’ teams continue to struggle to move without the ball. This was never a problem until Steve Blake graduated. Since that time, no player seems to want to get open on their own. They’d rather dribble the ball and take a wild shot. This can’t work in the flex offense. In fact, the flex offense is designed so that most players are forced to move without the ball too much. So it’s not a good sign when everyone already wants to stand around and watch Vasquez dribble.

Also, I continue to wonder if Gary should go all-out and start four guards. It worked for Villanova for a few years. I know that most of their guards made their way into the NBA, but Jay Wright someone managed to take a four guard lineup and compete in the physical and tall Big East. You would think that four lesser, but still very talented, guards could compete in the smaller and quicker ACC. Put four guards on the court, hope Dupree can hold his own inside, and bring Milbourne off the bench. This would allow Maryland to be quicker and more agile than any team in the conference other than UNC. And they’re not going to compete with UNC regardless of their lineup.

Overall, Maryland should be able to compete and hold their own against teams their size. They are going to press a lot, and they are going to run a lot. It is going to look an awful lot like Williams’ teams from the mid-90’s. Against teams with young guards, Maryland will have an advantage. However, against teams like UNC and Miami, Maryland won’t have much success. There is no one who can guard Hansbrough. There is also no way teams like Miami and Virginia Tech will let Maryland get out and run. If Maryland is suckered or forced into a game of half-court offense, they’ll lose 90% of the time. No one executes the flex well enough, and there is no reliable scoring option inside if the shots aren’t falling. This looks like a team that will show a lot of glimpses of promise, but a team that is way too one-sided. They will not finish in the bottom third of the conference, like I’ve seen several magazines predict. They won’t finish in the top third of the conference either. This is a 7-win ACC team, and a team that probably won’t make the NCAA tournament unless Dupree becomes Lonny Baxter, or Goins develops really quickly.

Michigan State is one of the best four to seven teams in the nation. Maryland did not luck out by drawing them in the Old Spice Classic first round. They are a physical Big Ten team with a lot of size to rotate against Maryland’s inferior frontcourt. Raymar Morgan is a force inside. He is 6-9 and 225, a prototypical Big Ten power forward. I’m not sure how Maryland plans to match up with him and the 6-10 Goran Suton at the same time. Suton is a bit of a stiff, but he’s still an option that the Terps won’t have an answer for. Kalin Lucas is terrific guard who may challenge for a spot on an All-American team (probably not 1st team, but one of the three). Along with Chris Allen and Durrell Summers, the MSU backcourt is pretty deep as well. They have five legitimate scoring options. If freshman forward Delvon Roe can get over his knee problems, then MSU can be very good, balanced, deep and nearly impossible to stop. A Big Ten team that scores? Who would have thought? On top of all this, they have one of the best in-game coaches in the business in Tom Izzo. His teams are always tenacious defenders and rebounders, and the 08-09 Spartans will be no different. This is the best Big Ten team we’ve seen since Ohio State two seasons ago.

Maryland will probably not win this game. They are not ready to face a team this tall and physical. They are also not ready to face a team of this caliber. The Spartans are simply more talented than Maryland. That’s not going to change by Thursday, or by March. The Terps are going to run into several teams that are simply better than are. It will be interesting to see what Maryland can do against Oklahoma State/Gonzaga or whatever other teams they face in this tournament. I would love to see Maryland get a shot at playing Georgetown in this thing, but I doubt either team will win enough to advance. Either way, I won’t be here to write about, so I’ll see the Maryland basketball fans before the actual ACC/Big Ten game against the other Michigan school. As far as this game goes:

Michigan State 74
Maryland 57