I think it can be said that the Maryland Men’s Basketball team is getting “better”. Mark Turgeon is starting to gain progress with his players.
If one has watched all the games of the 2014 season, the team was fairly poor at decision making, defense was lacking and the group had little cohesion when the game was on the line. Whether it was coaching, the players, or the phase of the moon (or all three) we were not sure.
The “coming apart rather than together” nature of the team was most apparent on the road. So when the Terps hit the tobacco road for the last time in trips to UVA and Duke, we were braced for the worst.
The worst did not happen. Maryland has started to show signs of coming together. It is a little late in the season for a 14-12 team, losers of the last two games, to get it going. But better late than never.
Four of the last five games are at home. Starting with Tuesday and Wake Forest. Then Syracuse comes to Comcast for “Big Monday”, at Clemson, VT and UVA here. And that’s it for the ACC.
We can lament or celebrate the end of the ACC later, what matters now is that there is hope in TerpLand. If this is just a NIT team for 2014, but you see progress and a future then it is not so hard to wait until next year.
If one sees that Seth Allen is a good point guard, that Chuck (Charles Mitchell) can rebound and score, that Damonte Dodd can play at this level and that Turge is a solid game coach – it does not erase the season but one can feel better about it.
No, I am not suggesting that there is any other reason to play the games other than to win the games. But if one is not going to win the games, at least seeing progress makes the losses more tolerable.
how will maryland play this evening is the question. do they come out feeling better about themselves after very good efforts vs duke and uva or will they come out flat?
and what will the crowd be like? large and loud or have the fans basically packed it in except for the sellout for syracuse?
here's hoping that dodd gets plenty of minutes. how much can you learn sitting on the bench?
and i am hoping for roddy peters to get more minutes at point? he barely played as a high school senior and played fairly well before allen came back from injury earlier this year.
to me, allen is a volume shooter-scorer, not a point guard..so give roddy some minutes to see what he may be able to bring to the team next year.
take care and good-bye!