Maryland Basketball: Pack Of Lies

Maryland Terrapins (17-10, 6-7 ACC) vs.
NC State Wolfpack (15-11, 5-8 ACC)
RBC Center - Raleigh, NC

Before we dive into the game tonight, I think a few thoughts are in order on Wednesday’s contest. I was hard not to be proud of the effort the Terps gave against the Nerds. It’s clear that Maryland just doesn’t have the talent to play night in and night out with teams like UNC, Clemson and Duke. We knew coming into the season it was a distinct possibility that Maryland wouldn’t be able to run with the top dogs in the ACC. For the most part that has been true. But the Terps managed to beat Carolina, outplayed Duke for a half and played even with the cheer sheets for 36 minutes or so. No, they didn’t win. No, I’m not a big believer in moral victories. But the Terps were a play or two away from winning on Wednesday, and it was hard to leave the arena feeling that bad about their chances as the season enters March.

A couple of thoughts from the game itself. One, Maryland’s effort was even more amazing considering they played the second half 5 vs. 8. Now, being a lifelong Maryland fan, I realized that in any game against Duke, you have to be prepared for that outcome. Recently, the refs had actually been pretty fair in Maryland-Duke games. However, that second half may have been the worst officiated half I’ve seen since the second half of the 2001 Final Four game. I hate blaming the refs…I really do. I don’t want to sound like a bitter fan. It was all bad refereeing. For the first time all season, the Terps struggled at the line. Maryland also struggled rebounding the ball in the second half. But the refs made several key bad calls throughout that half, and they all benefited Duke. And in a game in which every possession was important, the refs may have been the deciding factor.

My favorite sequence occurred at the beginning of the second half. And this will conveniently lead me into my second thought about the game. More on that in a second. Anyway, Greivis Vasquez drove on Duke White Stiff #1 (Singler). White Stiff fouled him not once, but twice on the way to the basket. No calls. Vasquez missed the shot, got his own board and followed with a layup. So no real harm done except for the fact that White Stiff didn’t get in additional foul trouble. On Duke’s ensuing possession, Singler jumped to the top of the key and set an illegal pick (I believe on Vasquez, but I could be wrong on that). Again, no call. White Stiff then got the ball in the paint before running into two Terps and slipping before the ball was passed. This was a travel. Was there a call? Of course not. Moments later, Singler sets another illegal screen on Sean Mosley in the corner. There were two problems with this pick. First of all, Singler was moving, so the pick itself was illegal. Secondly, when it was apparent that Mosley was going to get around the screen, Singler stuck his leg out in an attempt to trip him. Mosley stepped on the White Stiff’s foot and twisted his ankle. Mosley was hurt on the play. So not only was the pick illegal, it was very dirty. Again, no call. So in a 30 second span, one Duke player managed to commit 3 to 4 fouls and traveled, but not one call was made. The rest of the second half continued like that. All three of Vasquez’s fouls in the second half were terrible calls. And I’m not sure how many times ACC refs are going to let Lance Thomas go over-the-back, but he did so at least four times on Wednesday. It wasn’t so much the fouls that were called that upset me (with Vasquez’s being the exception), it was the ones that weren’t called that were fairly obvious to anyone in attendance.

So now my second thought: the crowd. There were two instances for which the Maryland crowd is now being grilled in the media. The first was after Mosley’s injury. Most of you watching on TV probably could not see Singler’s screen, since he did it on the opposite end of the court from the sideline camera. There would also have been a couple of bodies in the way from that camera angle. He also did it on the opposite end from where the media sits. It was done right in front of the Duke bench and right in front of most of the student section, including myself. I was no more than 20 feet from the screen and I saw the whole thing develop, as did 4,000 students. We all knew it was dirty. We knew that a foul should have been called. Now all of a sudden there was an injured Maryland player and White Stiff was on the bench smirking. So the crowd chanted “Fuck you Singler”. Crude, yes. But uncalled for? Not really. If Ratface allows his players to do that, and the refs aren’t going to stop them, then someone needs to call them out. It’s hard for me to feel sorry for a scholarship athlete that intentionally tries to trip opposing players. Of course, when the media has ripped the student section this past week, nothing at all was mentioned of the illegal screen that prompted the vulgar cheer. It was all Maryland’s fault as usual.

The second instance was the Dave Neal screen on Nolan Smith. First, Neal’s screen was LEGAL. I went back and watched it several times from the three different angles that ESPN provided. Just to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Other than leaning into the screen a little, which is common and almost never called, Neal did nothing wrong. His feet were set. He didn’t lunge into Smith. Neal made no contact with Smith’s head (Smith’s concussion occurred from whiplash, not contact). Neal stayed in his “vertical plane”, which is the termed used by the NCAA rule book to describe how screen should be set. So in other words, legal screen.

Now, when Smith hit the floor, the student section erupted. A few seconds later, since the Terps were essentially on the power play while Smith was on the ground, Neal hit a big three and the Comcast Center got louder. Were the students cheering the injury? Probably. Were they also cheering the three-pointer? I would say so. Again, this came moments after the illegal screen set by Singler that wasn’t called and injured a Maryland player. I don’t advocate fans cheering injuries. But this was justified. Ratface and his dirty bunch brought that on themselves. They aren’t the innocent victims here. Duke started the physical play, and Dave Neal ended it. My only regret is that Smith got hurt instead of Singler. If there was any justice, the White Stiff would have been writhing in pain. And whenever Smith wakes up and realizes where he is (since he had no clue on Wednesday), he shouldn’t blame Neal and he shouldn’t blame the Maryland crowd. He should blame Singler and Thomas (who was throwing elbows most of the game) for beginning the physical play. And since the screen happened right in front of the Duke bench, he should blame the entire team for not calling out the screen in the first place. I hope Smith ends up OK, I really do. But don’t go pointing fingers at Neal and don’t go slamming the student section without telling the WHOLE story. The crowd, by the way, was fantastic. It reminded me a lot of Cole Field House. I love the fact that Maryland fans can get into games without playing patty-cake and reading from cheer sheets like some other fan bases.

Anyway, onto the game tonight. The Terps play NC State for the first time since February 9th of last year. This schedule madness has to stop. There is no way the Terps should be playing NC State and Wake Forest for the first time all season in March. Really, there isn’t a way to have all 12 teams play each other and then start the partial round robin? Ridiculous.

State flirted with the NCAA bubble a few weeks ago, but the Pack are now firmly out of the tournament barring some run in Atlanta. They continued to be led by the worst coach in the conference now that Leonard Hamilton somehow managed to do enough at FSU to make the tournament. It is Sidney Lowe’s third season in Raleigh, and despite having talent on the roster, there are no signs that the Wolfpack are going to compete with the upper echelon of the ACC any time soon. His first showed a bit of promise. He managed to lead the Pack to a 20-win season despite a very young roster. Brandon Costner emerged as a potential star. But last season and this season have been steps back for the NC State program. They finished dead last in the conference in 2008 and will likely finish 10th in 2009. The improvement has little to do with them and a lot more to do with the abysmal situations at Virginia and Georgia Tech.

The Pack is 14-31 on Lowe’s watch in the ACC. Costner has been a good player, but hasn’t come close to making the leap to ACC superstar. Ben McCauley and Courtney Fells also remain good players, but neither have been able to improve under Lowe. That leaves State in the constant limbo of being a 5 to 6 win team in the conference. A team that’s good enough to pull an upset or two (ask Wake Forest) but simply can’t compete every week with the middle part of the conference. Three of their five ACC wins have come against UVA and Georgia Tech. Two of those wins came by five points. With Costner, McCauley and Fells, NC State remains a dangerous team that can’t be overlooked. However, the sophomores and freshman haven’t added enough depth to the team and Lowe hasn’t made his good players great. It would also help if he could recruit a point guard, since NC State hasn’t had a decent one since Atsur used up his eight years of eligibility. Once again I’ll point out that, despite the fans constant complaints, NC State was one-thousand times better off with Herb Sendek. After Ol’ Herb was run out of town, he landed in Tempe and has built Arizona State into a tournament team. Looks much better than the current option.

Maryland has a long history of not showing up for games like this. They just came off two critical home games against ranked teams and have another one coming up on Tuesday. NC State is easy to overlook, but as I said above, that is usually when Lowe and company are able to spring a trap. Playing in Raleigh is never easy, even though the Terps have had recent luck at Carolina’s hockey arena. I fully expect Maryland to sleepwalk through the first half, before recovering to make it interesting in the second. Will it be enough to win. I have a lot of doubts.

Maryland 71
NC State 68