By Mason and Jordan Viener
Before the season, I like many of you, heard that the Terps are 10 deep this year. Mark Turgeon chose a different route Saturday night against Penn State, Maryland only played six (Seven Ricky Lindo played 1 Minute), players.
| # | Player | PTS | FG | 3FG | FT | OR | DR | REB | A | PF | TO | BL | ST | MIN |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1* | COWAN | 11 | 4-7 | 2-4 | 1-1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 17 |
| 5* | AYALA | 2 | 0-1 | 0-1 | 2-2 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 18 |
| 11* | MORSELL | 4 | 2-2 | 0-0 | 0-2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 17 |
| 23* | FERNANDO | 4 | 2-5 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 19 |
| 25* | SMITH | 11 | 5-7 | 1-1 | 0-1 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 17 |
| 2 | WIGGINS | 4 | 1-2 | 0-0 | 2-2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 11 |
| 14 | LINDO JR. | 0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
The question is why. The short answer is that these are the players the Mark Turgeon thought gave his team the best chance to win. To many, this read as Maryland only has six big game ready players, and that is true especially down low. Turgeon and co. continuously use Ricky Lindo as a post player when it is starting to seem obvious to most if not all who regularly watch basketball that he is a wing player, not a PF. Ivan Bender is not fully back from an injury and Joshua Tomaic is nowhere to be found. This begs the question, what should Turge do about the lack of front court depth?
First we need to set some ground rules. Playing Jalen Smith and Bruno Fernando 35+ minutes a game each is not the way to go. This will only recreate what happened last season with Anthony Cowan and Kevin Huerter, towards the end of the season they will be out of gas in 2nd half of every game and cause us to lose in late game situations. We also can’t expect Turgeon to play Tomaic, I don’t why but he simply will not put #0 in despite him playing reasonably well down low last season. With those rules in place here are some suggestions that can be mixed and matched-
Stagger Smith and Fernando
It is no secret that Sticks and Bruno are one of the best frontcourts in the Big Ten when playing together. They both have outstanding advanced and traditional stats and are a cut above the rest of the team by most measures. However, if they play together that means they will most likely be taking time off the floor together, which means that the Terps suffer when they aren’t on the floor.
The solution to this is to stagger their minutes, meaning that, while they won’t have the luxury of playing together anymore. The team also won’t suffer the severe drop off of them not being on the floor at all, while also allowing them to take more time off the floor as the team will only need to cover one front court slot off the bench.
Play Darryl Morsell at Power Forward
A lot of people are already unhappy about this, I know. We all wanted to see the Baltimore native get more run at his natural wing slot, but the sad truth is that the number 11 is needed more down low than he is beyond the arc. Morsell was workable at the 4 last season, his natural toughness and athleticism made him a semi-natural fit on the block. He was also 3rd on the team in total rebounds (ignoring his average rebounding rate, which ranked 8th on the team). One of the other major points of this argument is his 3 point shooting percentage is the worst on the team for anyone with more than one shot.
Use Four around One sets
This one is something that Turgeon did actually do a fair amount last year. The four around one is essentially a line up/play style that only uses one true big man and surrounds him with scoring threats (for those who want to know more, click here). This line up would probably consist of Ant, S. Smith, Ayala, Wiggins, and either Sticks or Bruno.
Your first thought is probably something along lines of “that line up is too small” but that’s the point. Four around one lineups are supposed to be small, fast, and good shooters, and that’s what this group does.