Wire to Wire: Terps Beat Tech
As mentioned in my earlier post, I was lucky enough to score some tickets to this afternoon’s game. Fortunately I get to use the word “lucky” in that first sentence, it could have very well been unlucky considering how far I have to drive to College Park now days, but I was very excited about what I saw. The Terps put together a complete 40 minute effort to put away Virginia Tech and to pull back to .500 in ACC play. That is huge.
Landon Milbourne lead the way with 23 points, and Greivis Vasquez chipped in 19. You can’t over look their efforts tonight, but I personally thought Sean Mosley played exceptional. He wasn’t flawless, but he seemed to be in on every key play and battled for every loose ball like our season depended on it (which it basically did). But I think I’ll be careful not to point out anyone in particular (from now on anyway) because tonights win was a total team effort.
Another stat that jumps out at you from the box score was the Free Throw shooting. I don’t have the time to look it up, but I would say that was one of the best free throw shooting nights in the history of our program. Maryland made 24 FT’s in 26 attempts, and if I heard Johny Holiday at the end of the night correctly, at one point had made 19 straight. VT on the otherhand made 13 out of 21. In a game that was won by 10 you can’t stress enough how important the foul shooting was tonight.
I also want to point out that Milboure and Mosley also had the most minutes tonight with 38 and 31. Oh wait, I said I was done singling out individuals, sorry about that. But If I wasn’t done here would be where I would say how Greivis played within himself, and when you don’t know he is scoring, he is at his best. I was shocked when I saw he had 17 points. I guess when he isn’t the only one scoring, his baskets don’t stand out as much.
Anyway, the only knock of the evening has to be the Comcast Center becoming the Dodger’s Stadium of the East. I was embarrassed with how empty the place was at tip off. By the 10 minute mark in the first half it look basically 98% full, but still, what is going on people. I can understand a 7:00 start on a weeknight. Traffic in the College Park area sucks and coming from work doesn’t leave much time for back ups and detours, but this game was on a Saturday afternoon! How can you not be on time to a 4:00 game on Saturday? Like I said, the place did fill in nicely, but as much as we can sometimes cuss these kids, I think we as fans collectively have to make a better effort to be in our seats before tip.
Anyway, a huge night for the Terps. We still have a ways to go to get to 8 wins, but a loss today would have pretty much been ball game for 2009. Luckily we still have a chance. Granted we still have to knock off Clemson, Wake, UNC, or Duke, but if we get some more efforts like the one we got tonight, that doesn’t sound as unrealistic as it did 24 hours ago. I still believe….for now anyway.
Extra Droppings:
In case you are wondering, my daughter did just fine. She seemed a little overwhelmed at first. In fact when Dave Neal made his first shot, there was a slight hush to the crowd as the ball was in the air, but once it went in the crowd exploded into applause, and at that point she pretty much jumped out of her skin. But after that she was fine. She pointed out Testudo a couple times in the stands, and by the end of the game looked as if she was holding her fingers out while the Maryland players were making their free throws, but that may have been more of a coincidence. Overall she gets an A. Not an A+, she was a little figity in the last 15 minutes of the game, but all things considered she did great. Now had Maryland lost by 15, maybe I wouldn’t be grading her so easily!!
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