This is the time of year where Maryland basketball fans get all excited and wonder how far will the Terps go during the regular season. Putting up points seems easy on lower lever teams while pressuring these teams into a panic, but some fail to wonder whether these players are gaining valuable experience during these games. Fairfield is one of those teams and they came to Comcast center Tuesday night in hopes being competitive, but eventually left with a loss, 71 – 42.
Maryland again got off to a slow start offensively in the first half, turning the ball over and missing shots until two and a half minutes in when Hayes scored on a three-pointer. Vasquez didn’t look sharp, turning the ball over a few times and scoring only two points. Maryland couldn’t pull away from the Stags for most of the first half thanks to some of their own good defense. The Terps did have some good key runs in attempt of pulling away from the Stags. Mosley has been impressive with his defense with four steals and has added a few quality dunks to show his potential. We saw it last year for most of the season until late when he hit a roadblock and couldn’t score for about the last 5 games of the season. Eventually Maryland did pull away a little towards the half and ended up 8 points over Fairfield at halftime.
Marylands second half didn’t start off that well either, as they didn’t score for the first three minutes. They did have a few great second half runs though of 14 – 6 and 10 – 0 fueled by their defense that helped them pull away. Greivis, again had a tough time finding any sync and there were a few questionable passes he threw to his teammates that were ill-advised. Maryland likes to run, that’s always been Gary, but I’d like to see these kids play good half court offense. They need to realize when they can’t run and drive the lane because defenders are there, then don’t just spot up and shoot the ball. Slow down and wait for the rest of your team and run good half-court. James Padgett and Jordan Williams look good. They both have a knack for getting to the ball and if they can build some confidence, they will become more forceful under the basket and hence better defenders.
I realize we’re only two games in and most of this playing time is Gary finding the right lineup. Some of this looks erratic at times and maybe it will all go away in the next few games. Except for Villanova in a few weeks, Gary has a fairly padded schedule until the first week of January, but if the Terps are not careful, one of these lower end opponents may come up and bite this team. Next up, the Wildcats .. of New Hampshire.