For right now, Maryland has one transcendent basketball player, Melo Trimble. He is teamed with a really good backcourt mate in Rasheed Sulaimon. The other positions are in flux.
The season is early, but Maryland is not nearly as good as it could become.
Two players don’t make a team.
On display again last night was the sloppy ball-handling, poor starting Terps of the 2015/16 season. Yes it was only one loss, but the writing was on the wall. No guard depth, poor defense and no rebounding. Oh, great offense by Melo, Nickens and Sheed.
For this team to be national championship great, it needs to have at least 4 guys on the same page. For the Terps to be really good, Melo and Sheed are enough. To be great, Maryland needs more.
Nickens is not a great defender or a ball handler, but he can shoot the ball. To have him be on the court full-time, Maryland may have to play more zone than usual.
Jake Layman is not a solid prime-time player. He is a college power-forward, not a small-forward. With the good games mixed with the bad, he will not live up to the projections that Terp fans have held up for him. Maybe down the stretch of the season he will become a go to guy in big games.
Diamond Stone will learn to play defense. He could be super/fantastic. He is merely good at the moment on offense and lost on the defensive end.
The X-factor for this season has two faces. One is Robert Carter and the other is Jaylen Brantley. For Maryland to be final four good, Carter has to find a regular place in the lineup. This one is on Turge.
This is not hockey and we can’t keep rolling 10 guys into the game. If you want the chemistry, you have to get the mix down to 8 and give starters minutes to Carter. Dodd, Jake and Ceko might have to sit more.
On Brantley, whatever minutes he needs to get into the flow have to be achieved before the B1G season gets underway. I don’t know if he can play or not, but Maryland needs another guard. Brantley is the only choice.
Is Maryland a legit top 5 team? I really could not tell you at the moment. Is this a development project to get to the final four? Yes it is. Maryland will be better in March then it is now.