Sunday, February 1, 2009

Williams, Terps Responds With a Win

Amidst all the turmoil in College Park, Maryland came away with a solid 73-68 in conference win over Miami. Greivis Vasquez (11 points, 10 rebounds, 9 assists) was one missed Adrian Bowie layup away from a triple double, but Landon Milbourne was really the key to the game making a bevy of huge buckets down the stretch. Top ten recruit, Lance Stephenson, shockingly enough was in the building even though there has been no evidence whatsoever of him having one iota of interest in being a Terp. Good game for him to be at. Now, the reason I posted this is because I wanted to take a glass half full look at the season. If you're an optimist you could reasonably argue, with some merit, that Maryland really only should have three losses this season, those being to Duke, Georgetown, and Gonzaga. That's a record of 18-3 (6-1 in ACC). The one out of conference loss at home was to Morgan State who overcame a 17 point deficit to win. Then, Maryland managed to blow a 14 point lead at Miami with under 8 minutes to go. Follow that up with an overtime loss at Florida State and another 14 point 2nd half blown lead to Boston College at home and you have a recipe for disaster. Honestly, Maryland, though undermanned clearly has the talent to build 2nd half double digit leads, so something is missing. These losses all seem somewhat flukey to me, and yes a loss is a loss, but the team isn't necessarily doomed for next season, considering everyone is returning with the exception of Dave Neal, who will be replaced by two 6-10 freshmen bigs. Sean Mosley looks incredibly promising as a freshman and will be a fourth point guard next year along with Vasquez, Hayes, and Bowie. Milbourne is steadily improving as well, hopefully Dino Gregory and Cliff Tucker can add some seasoning to their games and we'll see what happens. Maybe even Burney and Dupree... ok, now I'm getting out of control. You get the point, though.

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