Sure, there was a buzz building around the Terps hoops team over the past week. I mean who could blame us. They had rolled their four previous opponents (3 of them ACC teams). It has been a while since us Maryland fans were sitting a top the conference standings, even if it was only 4 games in!
Then reality struck in Littlejohn Coliseum. The Terps played their worst game since, I don’t know when. I am sure if I dug through some bad memories I could pull a couple games. You could look at that Clemson games two ways. One, it was on the road, a game we didn’t really feel was a lock to win. Two, they played as poorly as they possibly could, and still managed to fight back and take a second half lead. But, they let a good opportunity to pick up a coveted road win pass them by.
I choose to live with the fact that despite how poorly they played, they were a contested made three pointer by Trevor Booker from possibly walking away with a win. That shot kind of took the wind out of the sails I think. When I was a student, and even up until we won the National Championship, I lived and died by every game. A loss would make those couple days after a little gloomier. A win, and I had a little extra bounce in my step. These days, I seem to have allowed other aspects of my life set my mood a little more.All that said, that game hurt, but at the same time I don’t have a doom and gloom feeling.
Back to today’s Terps. While that was another close loss on the road, they showed me a lot. They could have packed it in and gotten blown out like last years visit to Clemson. They hunkered down, forced Clemson into their own turnover problems and showed they were going to make Clemson really earn it. To their credit, they did.
Moving forward, as fate would have it, Maryland gets another chance to get a nice road win. We have one in the pocket, but it would be really good to get another one from Florida State on Thursday night. I expect it to be a little different than the visit to College Park last month. The key will again be how Jordan Williams (BTW kudos on a well deserved ACC Rookie of the Week), Landon Milbourne and company can contain Solomon Alabi. He got in to foul trouble early in the last game, and the Terps were able to roll.
You think back to some of the great Terps teams of the past, and you could almost predict the type of performance you would get on a given night. This team on the other hand, has the talent to make a nice run late into March, but you just never know what you are going to get from one game to another. They can go a long way in calming me down by playing poised basketball again. I would like to think that the Clemson game was just one of those nights, where everything went wrong, and we will see more efforts like we did against NCST, BC, and FSU. So tune in Thursday night, if for no other reason to try and find out what this team is made of and see if they can improve on their weaknesses. They have to protect the ball under pressure, get tougher on the defensive boards, and continue to shoot well. If they can improve in those areas, they should be able to contend all season long. For more on the game check us out at Turtledroppings. GO TERPS!
Tags: Florida State, Jordan Williams, Maryland
