Looks like all the players for Maryland may need to sport a Mohawk after this weekend’s win against Virginia Tech. Winning for the third time in four games, Adrian Bowie and Landon Milbourne may have started a trend by showing up with a Mohawk Saturday. Whatever the cause, Maryland came out strong as they played good defense and hit key shots when they needed to. This was a step in the right direction as their number one scorer, Greivis Vasquez, was limited in the second half with foul trouble. Greivis ended up with 17 points and Milbourne lead all Maryland scoring with 23.
That’s right boys and girls, Maryland has more than one scorer on this team! Vasquez, Marylands leading scorer for most of the season, relied on his teammates to finish the job after picking up his fourth foul with 8:33 left on the game clock. Maryland played the way they read on paper – a team loaded with guards and forwards. They went to the charity strip more than 20 times, hit key three pointers when needed and threw in a momentum changing dunk by Milbourne to march their way to a win.
The Terps came out and played good ball on both sides of the floor against Virginia Tech. They played tough defense against a team that is usually giving out defense of their own. Although Maryland did allow Tech to shoot close to 40% from three-point range, you could tell they were trying to defend the three better. With Malcolm Delaney shooting close to 40%, it’s hard for anyone to stop Tech from shooting a good three percentage. The Terps were also able to play good offense against Tech when most of the game they seemed to be double-teamed. Maryland set their offense and converted 15 assists on 26 of their made shots. They kept care of the ball with only 10 turnovers and rarely took any off-key shots that would make Gary start yelling at his bench.
It’s taken Maryland 24 games to get to this point, but I think they’re catching on. Make no mistake about though I haven’t declared them cured, they’ve just shown good promise to fitting the profile Gary has laid out on paper. Keeping this up for the rest of the regular season will be their next goal and if they accomplish that, then they will position themselves for a post-season birth in the NCAA tourney. Only time will tell. Next stop – Clemson.
