Maryland Basketball: On Guard

#3/3 Villanova Wildcats (7-0) vs.
Maryland Terrapins (5-2)
Verizon Center - Washington, DC
BB&T Classic

So if you weren’t impressed by Maryland’s win in Hoosierville, you weren’t the only one. Not that I couldn’t see that coming. I said on this very page that I expected Maryland to struggle with Indiana before pulling away late. The 12-point final spread is very deceptive. If you watched the game, you know it was a two-possession game most of the way. Indiana simply doesn’t have the talent (right now…check back in two years) to run with power conference teams. Maryland wore them down and that allowed the Terps to run their offense effectively in the last 6-8 minutes. Other than that, there weren’t a lot of positives to take away from this game.

Despite being a true road win (which does hold some swag come tournament time), this won’t exactly be a RPI-boosting win. If the Hoosiers are in the top 100 RPI at the end of the season, it would surprise me. The guards still couldn’t hit shots, open or contested. Jordan Williams continues to struggle scoring around the basket. I know it’s going to take him time to develop a post game, but going up for layups instead of slamming home a wide open dunk shouldn’t have to be something you teach a 6’10” 18-year-old. And if someone knows what happened to Cliff Tucker, please let the College Park or Bloomington authorities know. He suited up for the game. He was on the bench. He never made it on the court. Seems like Gary has found his new Mike Jones whipping boy. There is no way in the world that Jin Soo Choi deserves minutes over Tucker. No way. You can complain about Tucker’s lack of defensive effort from time to time, but at least he contributes more than just five fouls a game.

The only other positive I can see, and you had to really squint to see it, is that Greivis Vasquez is slowly starting to get into a rhythm. And I mean slooooooooowly. Still, Vasquez seemed a little more like his old reckless self. He attacked the basket, drew fouls and poured in 23 points. He also made some key passes on flex cuts down the stretch to key the Terps 16-4 run that put the game away.

Futhermore, I was encouraged by what I saw from the rest of the conference. As I’m sure you know by now, the ACC finally dropped the challenge to the Big Ten (as correctly predicted on this page). What did we learn? Well, we now know why Clemson usually plays nobodies before their conference schedule. Oliver Purnell, the Jim Boeheim of the South, typically makes sure his team travels no further than Columbia, and gets no one tougher than the Citadel at home, before venturing into the ACC. However, Purnell has forced the Tigers to engage in some tougher competition this year. They were dismantled by Texas A&M, squeaked out a win against overrated Butler, and then choked one away (at home) to an above average Illinois team. What happened to that 23-point 2nd half lead, Ollie? We also learned that Wake is going to have problems scoring. Florida State should not be a serious threat, even with Michael Snaer. Virginia Tech is really going to struggle without A.D. Vassallo. N.C. State and Virginia are going to be as bad as advertised. Only Miami looked somewhat impressive. The conference may be worse than previously thought. Things certainly don’t look as bleak as they did earlier in the week. I was never concerned about the loss to Cincinnati. That was a team Maryland simply didn’t match up with. And suddenly, that loss to Wisconsin doesn’t seem so bad either. Right Dook?

Just in case this two week death march that Maryland has been on wasn’t tough enough, now the Terps have to hop on the Green Line and head down the Phone Booth and play Georgetown. HA! Seeing if you were awake. Obviously Georgetown would never schedule Maryland. Instead, Maryland has to go play in an arena they never play well in (save for the 2002 NCAA Tournament), while playing the #3 team in the country.

Villanova has been as good as advertised so far this season. They’ve played a couple of quality opponents, along with their usual schedule of Philadelphia Big 5 mid-majors. Villanova has quality wins over Dayton and Ole Miss. They have respectable wins over Drexel and La Salle. The only questionable result was their near loss to George Mason in Puerto Rico. Mason is not going to be very good this season (I’m basing this completely on their game last Wednesday at GW. I was able to score free tickets to the Smith Center and figured it was worth the short trip. Mason played absolutely lethargic for the entire game. They were sloppy. They had no interest in boxing out. Heck, Jim Larranaga appeared to give up early in the 2nd half. Futhermore, I know GW was picked to finish 13th in the A-14, but there is NO way 12 teams in that conference are better than the Colonials this year). Villanova struggled shooting in that game (35.8%), which probably explains why they needed a late three to win the game. So giving them a mulligan for that game, Villanova is tested and has played well in just about all their games so far.

As much as I’ve talked about Maryland being guard oriented, Villanova shifts that scale even further. This is the guard oriented team in college basketball. They only have two players taller than 6’8”. One has Hepatitis B and won’t be playing for the forseeable future, and the other (Maurice Sutton) is basically a defensive stopper. He doesn’t contribute much on the offensive end.

What Nova lacks in forwards they make up for with guards. They have a lot of them. They can all shoot. They can all score. Led by Jay Wright, who my girlfriend continuously reminds me is “very dreamy”, the Wildcats have been running this type of offense for years. Don’t forget the famous four-guard attack they used in the middle of the decade led by Randy Foye, Allen Ray, Kyle Lowly and Mike Nardi. That team was smaller than small. Even the few forwards were small. The guards were stringy. They lacked the tenacity to go inside at all. Once their shots stopped falling in March, they lost.

Despite similar styles, this Villanova team is much different. The guards are thicker. They can rebound. The two forwards they do play contribute much more than the ones that played a few years ago. Instead of four capable guards that didn’t make big shots when it mattered, the Wildcats throw out likely player of the year candidate Scottie Reynolds. If you’ve watched college basketball the last few years, not much has to be said about Reynolds. The last two seasons, he’s average over 16 points per game. He averages about four assists per game. He shoots well, makes threes, makes free throws and plays outstanding defense. He might be the most complete guard in college basketball today. He should be a lottery pick next summer.

However, it’s the supporting cast that worries more than Reynolds. You know Reynolds is going to get his points. You know he’s going to hit big shots. There’s nothing that most teams can do to stop him. You are better off not worrying too much about him. Maryland needs to focus on stopping the rest of this team. Corey Fisher is averaging 12 points and four assists per. Corey Stokes contributes ten points and five boards. The two forwards, Antonio Pena and Taylor King, combine for 25 points and 17 boards a game. Eight Wildcats (not counting the ill Mouphtaou Yarou) average close to 20 minutes a game. The loss of Yarou may actually be a blessing in disguise for Wright. Now he has more of an excuse to play exciting freshman Isaiah Armwood, who has been struggling to find minutes.

Villanova, like Maryland, has that one fatal flaw. If their guards are struggling to shoot from outside, the Wildcats struggle to score consistently. They will rush shots. They will have bad possessions. They can go into extended scoring funks. However, their guards shoot much better than Maryland’s, and a team-wide struggle is very rare. They already had one against Mason, and I doubt we see another one until conference play. All it takes is for one of their guards to go off, have the defense overcompensate, and open up the rest of perimeter, for Villanova to have success. In half of their Big East games last year, Villanova eclipsed 85 points. For a league that usually values thug ball and physicality, that’s a very impressive statistic. Villanova tends to impose their pace and their style on their opponent. And this year’s team is better than last year’s.

So how does Maryland win? They have to hope that the Wildcats have another off game and the Terps must get Villanova’s two forwards in foul trouble. That way they can run the flex cut (which has worked reasonably well this year) for easy points and Villanova won’t be able to shoot them out of the building. This was a game I didn’t expect Maryland to win at the beginning of the season. I’ve seen nothing this year to convince me that they can. Gary Williams’s teams usually come to play in games like this. The Terps may have a little desperation that Villanova doesn’t have. It may be closer than I expect. I don’t see Maryland on top at the end of this one.

Villanova 78
Maryland 67