Maryland Basketball: Lost Among The Trees

#18/19 Florida State Seminoles (13-2, 1-0 ACC) vs.
Maryland Terrapins (9-4, 0-0 ACC)
Comcast Center – College Park, MD

Going to be real short here. Computer crapped out…AGAIN! Have no idea when I’ll have use of it, but for the time being, I’m stuck doing this at work. Hence the shortness of this post.

Maryland starts off on another ACC adventure. If their play resembles anything we’ve seen so far, it’s going to be a brutal three months. The Terps don’t have an embarrassing loss this year, like they had the past two seasons. They also have exactly zero quality wins…unless you count Indiana. Which I don’t.

For those who were surprised by the loss to William & Mary, why were you? First of all, W&M is good. They’ll probably win the always tough CAA. They’ve had already beaten Wake Forest. I said for weeks that Maryland would lose that game. The only thing shocking was the way they lost it. I expected the game to at least be close, and it wasn’t until the very end. That was the only thing I was remotely shocked about. Not an excuse, past Maryland teams would have beaten a team the caliber of William & Mary (like when they easily beat a very good Winthrop team three years ago). But for these Terrapins this season, that loss was expected.

Unfortunately, I’m not going to get too much into the rest of the ACC in this post. It hasn’t been pretty anyway. NC State and Virginia are as bad as everyone expected. Boston College has lost to just about every Northeastern school, including Maine. Wake Forest has that previously mentioned defeat to William & Mary. North Carolina … yes, North Carolina … lost to College of Charleston. Someone forgot to tell Roy Williams and company that just because Bobby Cremins is on the sideline, doesn’t mean they’re necessarily facing Georgia Tech type talent. If Duke is really the best team in the conference (and Georgia Tech says hello), then the ACC is in real trouble.

The ACC gave Maryland what amounts to a gift opening schedule. As opposed to past years, where the Terps were forced to make some combination of a Miami-FSU-Tech road trip in the opening week of the season, Maryland actually opens the conference slate at home. FSU will be the toughest team Maryland plays the next two weeks. Then they go to Wake and BC, before home games against NC State and Miami. That is VERY favorable. No worrying about Duke, UNC, Georgia Tech or Clemson until January 31st. But it’s only a gift if Maryland takes advantage, and there’s absolutely no guarantee that will happen.

Florida State has the potential to be the surprise ACC team this season. They were dominated in both of their losses to Florida and Ohio State. They own wins over Alabama, Marquette (on a last second shot), Auburn and Georgia Tech. The Tech win, on the road, is the only win that really stands out at this point. But I like the way the Seminoles have played this season, even in their two losses. They have a physical frontcourt and enough balance in the back to win games in different ways. Soloman Alabi is their leading scorer so far. He’s averaging 12 points and 7 boards per game. At 7’1”, I’m not sure how Maryland plans on guarding him, since every player 6’6” or taller has had an easy time grabbing boards and getting putbacks. Freshman Michael Snaer has provided an immediate impact for Leonard Hamilton. So has sophomore and former Oriole outfielder Chris Singleton (sarcasm). Combined with Derwin Kitchen, Xavier Gibson, resident thug Ryan Reid, token European Deividas Dulkys and token white guy Jordan DeMercy, Florida State has a deep team for Leonard Hamilton. And as well as Singleton and Snaer have played so far, they have the potential to play much better as the season goes along. Those two aren’t close to leveling off yet. If they play up to potential, and Alabi keeps putting up his averages, then this will be a very dangerous team in a couple of months.

FSU does not shoot particularly well from outside or from the charity stripe, which is good since Maryland has been letting every team shoot threes with ease and get to the line without much effort. Other than Snaer, FSU lacks the guards who can slash to the hoop. So they should be somewhat easy to defend around the perimeter. Alabi, Singleton, Reid and the inside game are going to be a major problem. There is no doubt that the Terps are going to have to attack Alabi early and get him in foul trouble. If they don’t, then you can almost guarantee an easy double-double for him. He’ll also make Singleton and Reid much better by drawing defenders. Dino Gregory and Jordan Williams better man-up early.

I don’t see Maryland having much success inside, at least defensively. They’ve proven that even with three legitimate post players and Landon Milbourne they can’t stop half-decent forwards. I think it will be more of the same against the best forward combination that Maryland has seen so far. Even if the Terps start hitting open shots, which they haven’t yet this year, I can’t envision the Terps having any luck putting distance between FSU and themselves because they won’t be able to keep the Noles off the glass. Second chance points will be the difference, and Maryland will probably be hitting the road with a 0-1 conference record.

Florida State 74
Maryland 67