Maryland Guards, especially seniors Cliff Tucker and Adrian Bowie, had their way with Virginia last night beating them 66 – 44. The young Terps guards, Howard and Stoglin, also contributed well in this decisive win. This was an overall impressive performance by the Terps in evening their ACC record to 3 – 3.
Bowie had a season high 22 points, 4 steals and Tucker chipped in with 13 points, 3 boards. Bowie was one fire in the second half seemingly making everything he put up there. He was making three’s, lay-ups off of steals and with a few jumpers thrown in there, it was a one man scoring show in the second half. Most folks thought this would be the norm for Bowie coming into his senior season, but it hasn’t completely held true so far where he’s had to fight for the starting job with freshmen Pe’Shon Howard and Terrell Stoglin. Howard and Stoglin continued to impress as well with 9pts/4assts and 7pts/3assts respectively.
Maryland defense was at its best last night misdirecting shots and holding the ‘Hoos to 33 percent shooting. The Terps added 46 percent shooting from threes which is out of the norm, but there is potential from these guards as seen last night. There’s no way they can replace the hot hands of Vasquez and Hayes, but they can hold their own. A key note from last night though was the end of Jordan Williams’ double-double streak. Jordan ended the night on a dismal 2 – 5 shooting amounting to 4 points and 6 boards. That’s certainly not going to help this young team finish the season strong without contributions from him. It was clear though the Cav’s had a game plan around stopping Williams down low.
A few final thoughts from last night. One, The Terps need to get to the line more. Eight attempts is not enough and definitely not enough when they average around 63 percent. Two, Jordan Williams needs to get other guys involved when teams target him. He’s a known presence around the league and teams are going to give a full scouting report on just him so he needs to find other ways to score and be more involved with the offense when he’s bottled up. Finally, the Terps have to out-rebound other teams. They held a 27 – 26 advantage last night, but they need to widen that gap to a plus 10. Keep other teams off the boards and it will kill any rally the opponents have. Next up for the Terps, Georgia Tech Sunday the 30th. Go Terps!
Garyland has the young Terps playing over their heads. At 13-7 and 3 and 3, he is putting some teams on notice that the Terps have game. A calmer and more mild mannered Garyland is reaping huge dividends. Beat those Techies.