Turtledroppings.com – Maryland Football And Basketball Blog

Even with Greivis Vasquez starting the game on the bench as punishment for being late to a team shoot around, the Terps took a commanding early lead only to have to scratch and claw for 40 minutes to get the win.  With Vasquez coming off the bench, Adrian Bowie started in his spot, and fresh off his suspension Dino Gregory also got a starting nod over Jordan Williams.  It kind of surprised me considering how well Williams had played in the last game.

Maryland lead by as much as 16 points less than 10 minutes in, but a familiar foe posed its ugly head again.  Poor 3 -point defense allowed EKU to cut the lead to 8 thanks mostly to connecting on 6 of 12 3′s in the first half.  I actually was starting to get ready for my work Christmas Party, and came back into the room after only a minute of play had gone by only to see the lead shrink to 10 quickly.  Sure EKU made some 3′s, but the reality of the matter is Maryland went 8 minutes without a made basket after they stretched the lead to 16.  Sure there were a couple of made free throws, but as Maryland cooled down, EKU began heating up.

The second half was much the same, as Maryland couldn’t quite pull away.  Luckily Vasquez seemed a bit more like the GV we expected and Eric Hayes played a solid game adding 16 points to Vasquez’s 20.  Landon Milbourne also played one of his better games of the season against the smaller front court of EKU.

Overall, the game was not a thing of beauty.  It was sloppy, and the Terps just couldn’t sustain the level of play they came out of the gates with.  The important thing was they got the win heading into finals.

For all the anticipation of Dino’s return, he didn’t wow you with his stats, but he just seems to be around the ball more on the defensive end.  He ended with 8 points and 3 boards.  More importantly to me he was 4-4 from the line, after struggling mightily last season.  Not that I want him taking a lot of jumpers he did can a nice 12 footer early in the game.  He just needs to make a few of them to keep defenses honest.

So with that Terps, I congratulate you on the win, and wish you luck on your finals.  Make sure you get over there and rub Testudo’s nose.  It got me through!

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This entry was posted on Sunday, December 13th, 2009 at 1:17 pm and is filed under Maryland Terps Basketball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.