Maryland Basketball: All We Are Saying, Is Give Vasquez A Lance

#21/22 Maryland Terrapins (4-0) vs.
Cincinnati Bearcats (3-0)
Lahania Civic Center - Lahania, HI
Maui Invitational - 2nd Round

We’ll keep it real quick because I’ve got to do another game write up tomorrow and then NFL picks throughout the week and of course the riveting Redskins preview. We’ll follow that up with another riveting Maryland preview before they go to Indiana and we’ll go through NFL process all over again. You get the idea. What will lack in quality will be made for in quantity.

Anyway, Maryland basketball. The Terps are 4-0 and have played well against a host of nobodies. They’ve had seven halves of pretty good basketball and one mediocre first half against Chaminade. Hopefully we can attribute that to jetlag. I think we’ve learned three things about Maryland so far. Here there are in order of importance.

1) Dave Neal does not play here anymore. Maryland no longer has a weak frontcourt, and this team is as balanced as I expected them to be. Both Jordan Williams and James Padgett have added some much needed muscle to the post position. Not only that, but you can see how it’s affecting the entire team. Sean Mosley, Greivis Vasquez and the guards are attempting passes to the big men that they would never have tried last year because they knew Neal couldn’t convert. Williams and Padgett still have plenty of room to grow, especially on the offensive end. But they’re grabbing their rebounds and playing solid defense. They are allowing Landon Milbourne to play his game and not forcing him to hang around the basket every possession. Milbourne has had a terrific start to the season as a result. You can see the affect the better post players have had on the entire team. And they’re only going to get better. It’s great that they have been thrown into the fire in the pre-conference season. When Dino Gregory returns on December 12th, and the Terps enter conference play, the frontcourt will be even more of a force. Gregory’s suspension, as I said a few weeks ago, may have been a blessing in disguise.

2) Greivis Vasquez could be the undoing of this team. The reports were out there after Vasquez attended the pre-draft camps in the spring. He was a NBA-caliber player, but most scouts felt he had to work on his shot to become a sure-fire first round pick. So what has he done so far? He’s jacked up a variety of jump shots and it hasn’t been pretty. Vasquez is best when he goes inside out. He needs to attack the basket early in the game, get in the flow, then work outside and hit three’s. He is not a guy who is going to come out of the tunnel and light it up behind the arc. For the betterment of this team, and not for himself, Vasquez must get back to what he did best last winter. If he continues to attempt jump shots and play a like a regular guard, he is not only going to hurt his draft status, he is going to sink this team. John Gilchrist already did such a thing when he returned for his junior year. Not saying this season will turn out exactly like 2004-05, but it’s going down a similar path. Something to certainly keep an eye on going forward.

3) Sean Mosley has emerged as the third scoring option. We knew that Vasquez (if he gets his head right) and Milbourne would score. But we didn’t know who would step up and help them. Eric Hayes remains a perimeter player. Adrian Bowie and Cliff Tucker appear to be great complimentary players at this point. As I said above, the big men are impressive so far, but too young to be counted on when ACC season starts. Mosley has shown he has a game that mirror’s Vasquez. He can score both inside and out. He can slash to the hoop. He can get open without the ball (Dook guards take note). Most importantly, he can play defense, so he’ll get plenty of playing time. He reminds me of a mix between Gilchrist and Byron Mouton. He’s the scrappy, energy player that every team needs. But he’s a scrappy, energy player that can score.

So Maryland moves on in the Maui Invitational and receives their first real test of the season. Waiting for them on the winners’ side of the bracket is Cincinnati and our old friend Lance Stephenson. For those not familiar with the Stephenson saga, here is a quick refresher. Stevenson was a Top 10 recruit in the 2009 freshman class. First he was going to Kansas. Then Maryland. Then Kansas again. Then Kansas pulled out of the running. Then it was Maryland. Then Kansas re-entered the picture. Then Arizona joined in. But the longer it took for Stephenson to decide where he was going, the more schools stopped recruiting him. His talent wasn’t really questioned, but there were a lot of other factors around him. He may have had contact with agents. He may have been paid to endorse a website. He may not have been academically eligible. He had attitude problems and ran with the wrong crowd. By the spring signing period, most of the schools that had wanted him for years stopped recruiting him. Including Maryland. Had Stephenson decided last December or January to come to Maryland, he’d be wearing red and gold today. Because he waited until April, Gary Williams had decided he’d seen enough. Williams, like the other coaches of major programs, stopped recruiting him. Through attrition, Stephenson was forced to attend Cincinnati.

So far, he has helped the Bearcats field a typical Bearcat team. They are physical. They are big. They rebound well. The term “athletic” will probably be used to describe Cincinnati at least 20 times tonight by the broadcasters. But they are also a selfish team. There is no real cohesiveness. The defense can be lacking at times or at all times. This is the way Cincinnati played when Bob Huggins was there and they were in Conference USA. They haven’t really changed much since he left for Alcoholics Anonymous, Kansas State and West Virginia.

Cincinnati had a rather easy time with Vanderbilt in the first round. It helped that A.J. Ogilvy was called for two bogus fouls in the first few minutes and that the Bearcats didn’t have to worry about him in the first half. But it was impressive nonetheless. Stephenson looked good, but wasn’t anything special. He’ll make some great individual plays here and there, but most of the time, he’s going to stand around the perimeter while trying to play “And 1” basketball. The two players that really impressed me yesterday were Yancy Gates and Rashad Bishop. Gates reminds me a lot of Obinna Ekezie. He is always around the basket on both sides of the ball. He challenges every shot. He challenges for every rebound. He’s going to be a tough test for both Jordan Williams and Padgett tonight. Bishop is an all around good player. He can do a little of everything, and he’s pretty quick too. At 6’6”, he’s a matchup problem for most teams. Combine those two with Stephenson, returning senior Deonta Vaughn and a rotation that goes a legitimate 9-deep, and it makes a very underrated basketball team. It’s a team that I predicted to be around 5th or 6th in the Big East (most had them a few positions lower).

Maryland has to be fundamentally sound in the rebounding game tonight. Any loose balls near the basket are going to go Cincinnati’s way. If the Terps struggle to corral rebounds, the Bearcats will take advantage. Maryland will have to use their speed, and their superior backcourt to win this game. The guards will have to hit open looks. Because Vasquez and Milbourne really don’t present matchup problems to a team that’s pretty big and somewhat fast, Eric Hayes and Adrian Bowie will be key in this one. It should be an interesting test for Maryland. They aren’t going to see a lot of Cincinnati type teams on their schedule. This is the type of game Maryland has won the past few seasons (see the Michigan State game from last year). It’s going to be close, it’s going to be ugly. Maryland should pull out a narrow win if they hit their threes and hit the glass.

Maryland 71
Cincinnati 67