Maryland Basketball: Do Me A Favors

Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (18-8, 6-6 ACC) vs.
Maryland Terrapins (18-7, 8-3 ACC)
Comcast Center – College Park, MD

There’s nothing wrong with grinding out a win. Especially on the road. It doesn’t matter how bad NC State may be. Road wins aren’t easy to come by, especially in this conference. Especially coming off less than 48 hours rest. There are only three teams that have three or more road conference wins in the ACC: Duke, Florida State and Maryland. So while you’ll get no argument from me or anyone else that Maryland certainly didn’t play all that well on Wednesday, they managed to do enough for the win. That’s all that matters at this point of the season.

Greivis Vasquez is going to be the name that stands out in the box score. He has 26 points to go along with six assists and four boards. Over the last five games, he’s averaged 24.4 points. If he’s not player of the year in the ACC at this point, then some of the voters should have their credentials revoked. Yet, as good as Vasquez was, there were other performances that were more important. Jordan Williams had a field day inside. 19 points and 11 boards against Tracy Smith…and every single point was needed. Every time State seemed destined to go on a run in the second half, Williams had an answer. Also contributing a strong performance was Adrian Bowie. After missing in action for the past three weeks (seven points combined in the previous five games), Bowie hit two crucial shots in the second half during Maryland’s run to take the lead. For whatever reason, Bowie has disappeared in conference play this season. He seems to have no confidence. He’s hesitating to take open shots and forcing shots that have no chance to go in. At times, he looks completely lost on the court. Hopefully the big baskets help get his confidence back to where it was at the end of last season. He can be a very valuable player off the bench, especially if Eric Hayes craps the bed like he did against the Pack (edit: learned after the fact that Hayes had the flu earlier this week…probably the reason for his rough outing). Finally, even though he didn’t play much against NC State, I need to give a late shout out to James Padgett. I neglected to mention Padgett after his effort against Virginia. He played a long stretch of minutes in the first half, making a couple of hoops and grabbing a couple of boards. When Williams gets in early foul trouble, Padgett is going to be needed off the bench. Good to see him finally getting some playing time.

So the Terrapins keep getting closer and closer to locking up a tournament bid. They aren’t there yet. Everyone thinks that two more wins, whether in the regular season or ACC tournament, would probably do the trick. I really don’t want to get started with all that. In fact, this season feels a little reminiscent of 2008. Maryland got off to a strong conference start (7-4), then collapsed over the last five games and missed the tournament. And the final five this season are BRUTAL. Two home games against talented but poorly coached Georgia Tech and Clemson, a road trip to Blacksburg, senior night against the Dookies and the finale at Virginia, where Maryland always seems to find a way to lose. Nothing about any of those five games screams easy win. The Terps have done a great job this season managing to avoid “must-win” games, or at least having must win games against bad teams (like the home game against NC State and Monday’s game against Virginia). Maryland hasn’t forced themselves into a position of going on the road and facing a must-win against a good team. But this is where that loss to Wake Forest comes back and bites the Terps. If Maryland was sitting at 9-2, then all they’d really need is one win. Even if they play poorly over the next five games, I have enough faith in the Terps to scratch out one win during that stretch. Heck, if Maryland plays like they have all season, then there should be no problem getting two or three. However, if the Terps start to hit the skids, they may find that tenth win to be elusive. The 8-3 record is good, but that 9-2 record would look really nice right about now.

The loss to Wake makes this two-game home stand very important. Maryland can’t lose both games. A split may even be a bit disastrous. The Terrapins certainly have the capability of beating Georgia Tech and Clemson (they played like ass at Littlejohn and still almost came away with a win), but they also have the capability to lose both of those games. A loss to Tech makes the Clemson game a must-win. So even though the Terps are 8-3 and are in great position in both the ACC and the nation, the game today feels a little like a must-win.

Coming into the season, I thought Georgia Tech had the potential to win the conference. The Yellow Jackets definitely have the best frontcourt in the ACC with both Gani Lawal and Derrick Favors. Even with their current record, if I could take any combination of forwards from an ACC roster, it would be the Lawal-Favors monster. The two combine to average 25 points and 18 rebounds a game. They also average three to four blocked shots a game. Neither of them have the tendency to foul out. They are dangerous at both ends of the court. So with that in mind, how in the world is Georgia Tech 18-8 and only 6-6 in the ACC?

There are several reasons. The first and main reason has been coaching. Despite having two terrific power forwards, Paul Hewitt allows his guards to dominate the game. I’ve watched at least six or seven Tech games this season. Every time I watch them, I’m stunned by the inability of Tech’s backcourt to get the ball to Favors or Lawal. Not only that, I lost count of how many times the guards would hoist up bad shots and how many possessions Tech had where neither Favors or Lawal even touched the basketball. And Hewitt doesn’t prevent that from happening. If I was coaching Tech, and there were two or three consecutive possessions where my NBA-caliber power forwards weren’t touching the ball, and my guards kept jacking up terrible threes, I would call a timeout and bench my guards. Or at least spend the entire timeout blasting them until they understood that one of the big men had to get the ball in their hands every time down the court. Hewitt doesn’t do this. He kind of just sits and stares. Every once and awhile he’ll get up and point. He seems completely comfortable letting his guards make stupid plays. The sad thing is, Hewitt is a pretty good coach. Or was a good coach at one point. Don’t forget that he had Georgia Tech a couple of minutes away from a National Championship in 2004. I’ve been sort of stunned this season by his inability to get the most out of his team.

The Yellow Jackets are deep. Hewitt will play nine guys. Iman Shumpart, D’Andre Bell and Mfon Udofia (leave it to Hewitt to have at least one or two players on his roster that are impossible to spell) are the main ball-handlers. All three have seemingly hit a wall the last couple of weeks. Shumpart has scored in double-digits just once in his last six games. Bell has had four assists and 14 turnovers in his last five. Udofia has barely dented the score sheet in any category since the game against Division-2 Kentucky State on January 30th. Since none of these three like to get the ball to Lawal and Favors, and Hewitt doesn’t check any of them, they are the primary reasons that Tech has lost three of their last five and four of their last seven in conference.

Zachery Peacock is still in Atlanta, averaging ten points and four boards a game. Peacock is good enough to kill the opponent quietly while Lawal and Favors have good games. However, Peacock is not able to take a game over himself. Brian Oliver is the three-point guy. 127 of his 164 attempts have been from beyond the arc. He shoots close to 42%, and at 6’6”, can be a matchup problem (sounds like a job for Sean Mosley). Maryland can’t not lose track of Oliver, especially since he’s averaged 14 points over the last three games. Glen Rice Jr. and Maurice Miller have stepped up with Shumpart-Bell-Udofia struggling. Neither has played a lot this year, so their averages don’t look great. But Rice had a couple of nice games recently against Duke and Wake. He can also shoot from outside (47%). Miller has 23 points, ten boards and seven assists in the last two games and he only played 45 minutes. So while the big three guards have struggled, Hewitt has been able to dive into his bench to get quality minutes recently.

The Bees have been up and down all season. They’ve been swept by Florida State. They lost at Virginia and at Miami. They even lost to dreadful Georgia before jumping into their ACC schedule. Recently, Tech almost blew a 20-point lead at home to NC State. However, they own wins against Duke, Wake and Clemson…even though all of those wins have been at home. Wake and Duke have beaten Tech away from Alexander Memorial, and did so quite handedly. The Jackets only road win in conference was a two-point squeaker against UNC. Georgia Tech averages 75 points a game, but they’ve only broken the 70-point mark in two of their six ACC road games. Simply put, Georgia Tech struggles to score when they play away from Atlanta, and that’s the reason they are 1-5 in conference when they travel.

Tech is a big team, yet their rebounding margin is an even zero. In conference play, they’ve grabbed the same amount of rebounds as their opponents have. Lawal and Favors are the only ones who consistently grab boards. If one gets in foul trouble, the Jackets become a much easier team to beat (hint to Vasquez…please drive early in this game). The depth of the Jackets also worries me. As everyone following the Terps knows, this will be game #4 in eight days. How well Maryland’s legs hold up will be a huge factor. If Hewitt decides to go nine deep, and he should, then the Terps could be in trouble. However, Maryland has been lights out at home during conference play. This team has yet to have a nail-biter at Comcast all season. Plus, Maryland owns an eight-game winning streak over the Jackets. That’s the longest by any ACC team over another conference squad. So Gary has Hewitt’s number as of late. I think Tech has a couple of mismatches on the floor, but the home court advantage should propel Maryland to a key and close win.

Maryland 74
Georgia Tech 69


Elsewhere in the ACC…

I was 3-0 during the middle of the week, so the conference predicting record continues to soar to 35-12. Here are the weekend games.

North Carolina at Boston College
This is a Saturday afternoon CBS game. I guess CBS couldn’t work out a flex schedule with the NCAA.
Pick: North Carolina 72, Boston College 66

Wake Forest at NC State
The Deacons have had an extra day to prepare. The Deacons have Al Farouq Aminu. The Deacons aren’t coached by a man who usually wears a techno-colored dream coat. Should be an easy win.
Pick: Wake Forest 77, NC State 63

Virginia at Clemson
Things have been going south for Tony Bennett and company. Safe to say the honeymoon is officially over. The Hoos were booed off the court after they were embarrassed at home on Wednesday.
Pick: Clemson 74, Virginia 58

Virginia Tech at Duke
The Dookies get back to Cameron, so even after their dreadful first half against Miami, things will be just fine for them. Plus, someone needs to knock the Hokies down a peg. No way this team should be 21-4.
Pick: Duke 80, Virginia Tech 68