Carolina Game Breakdown
Carolina’s hot shooting really put a damper on what was a good effort for the Terps. I am getting tired of talking about moral victories, but lets be honest, no one really was expecting a Terps win. If you were to tell me Maryland was going to shoot 55% and score 44 first half points, I would have been pretty optimistic. I don’t really recall a team shooting like UNC did in a long time. 11-15 from 3 point range in the first half. It was almost comical. I felt like we were making some runs, but we were still down by 15 or so points. Maryland did go on a run toward the end of the half where they cut it to 13, and forced another UNC miss, only to allow them to get the offensive rebound and to score later in the possession. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened had they gotten that stop. It was Carolina’s night, more specifically Wayne Ellington’s night. He had a season high 34 points going 7-9 from three point range.
Here are some bright spots for the Terps. I liked the way they fought. They had several chances where they could have crawled into a hole, and just went through the motions like they did against Duke. You never saw any signs of not wanting to play hard. With Cliff Tucker in the lineup, they were able to get the ball up court quickly. This is where I have problems with Gary. What has Tucker done to not deserve playing time? Sure we don’t see practice, but he has been fairly effective when he is in the games. He scored 18 points on 8-14 shooting. Not only did he score, but he got into the lane and had several (4) great assists that led to easy baskets. After Bowie, he showed he could be the other true threat to get to the basket. Here is to hoping he earned some serious burn the rest of the way. Knowing Gary, I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t play at all on Sunday.
Sean Mosely continued to impress and scored a career high 19 points in the game. The kid is tough as nails. He had four assists, made all seven free throw attempts and shot 6-10. He still has a few things to work on. He did have four turnovers, and he had another sure lay-up blocked. I have noticed it a couple of times, he seems to let up right as he goes to lay it off the glass only to have it blocked. I am looking forward to watching his fighting style the next few years.
Jin Soo Kim led the Terps with 5 rebounds. He is very active, and that will keep getting him minutes. He came in with the reputation as a shooter, but we haven’t really seen that yet. I really think next year he will be more comfortable with the entire situation, and become a solid contributor. You can see the glimpses of potential. He just doesn’t quite seem to feel comfortable yet, but as he gets more minutes that should change.
I felt like the Terps kind of forgot who the most consistent player has been lately. Milbourne seemed to go too many possessions with out touching the ball. He finished with 9 points, but on 4-7 shooting. He needs to get more touches. I was hoping to see him draw some defenders out of the lane to defend his jumper, but it just didn’t seem to be in the cards.
So those are just some of my thoughts on some bright spots from the game. Like I said, if there is anyway to play “well” in a game where you lose by 17 points, I think the Terps did. There was one stretch toward the begining of the second half, where they had too many turnovers, but other than that, they really didn’t play that poorly. If they play like that the rest of the season, they are going to surprise some people, but it may be a little too late.
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on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 at 8:51 pm and is filed under Maryland Terps Basketball.
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