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It is here.  The beauty of New England winters.  I am not talking about the blizzard of 78.  Nor am I not referring to the recently completed Winter Classic.   I am also not referring to the Bean Pot.  It is the Maryland at Boston College Basketball game.   For a guy who spent his childhood and college days in Maryland, and now finds himself in the Winter Wonderland of Boston, it is like Christmas, Graduation, and a Birthday all in one day. So I will be there today with a couple of coworkers who just happen to like college basketball.

Enough about me.   What do the Eagles do best?  What do the Terps need to do to ensure today’s victory.  Here is where you need to come for the(insert future sponsor here) keys to victory.

Let’s be honest.  BC doesn’t pose the threat they have in the past.  As mentioned they have some losses at Conte Forum.  Way back in early December the Eagles defeated Miami to open the ACC season, but then followed that up with home losses to Harvard, and Rhode Island.  A few weeks later another home loss to Maine left questions about the Eagles.  That being said, keep an eye on Rhode Island.  They may surprise in the A-10 this year.

More recently BC is on a two game losing streak (at Clemson, and at Duke).  In the Duke game they gave the Devils plenty of trouble in the first half, before getting run out of the gym in the second half.

The Eagles are led by streaky shooter Joe Trapani.  He is averaging 14 points a game, and more importantly for the Maryland defense, he is hitting on 34% of his 3 point attempts.  Reggie Jackson, Rakim Sanders, and Corey Raji also score in double figures and all hit the glass.

Boston College does not rely on the three pointer as much as some other teams around the conference, but this is Maryland we are talking about, so look for Trapani or Jackson to get some good looks.  What BC does is to try and get the ball inside with an undersized front court.  They use picks and dribble penetration to try and get other guards the ball in the paint.  In the few years BC has been in the ACC, I have learned to never under estimate Al Skinner.  It seems every year they lose their best players, only to change his style to best fit his team.   With the smaller line up, they still run a lot of their offense inside the 3 point arc to try and to score off the screens.

So defensively for the Terps, the key is to keep Trapani from getting hot.   He can light it up from outside, and get in points in the paint.  I also expect the Terps to throw a plethora of defenses at BC.  You know we will press especially since BC is in the negative in turnover margin, but in the half court, there will be some zone to try and force BC to hit the outside shots.  The important part on the defensive end, will be fighting through screens, or switching on the picks.  Personally, I would prefer to see them fight through the picks, and be tough, but if you can’t get through, you are playing right into BC’s hands.  The most important thing the Terps must do is rebound.  BC is second in the ACC in rebounding margin.  I was very impressed by the rebounding effort against Wake Forest, and it must continue.  Vasquez, Hayes, and Mosley have to continue to help on the glass.

Offensively, I would like to see a little more of what they showed us at Wake.  Milbourne was active, Vasquez was Vasquez, and Hayes was hitting some three’s.  What I would like to see is a Sean Mosely scoring the way he did in the early part of the season.  He plays hard on both ends, but Maryland could use a consistent third scorer.  Be it Hayes or Mosley, they would be best served if you could hang your hat on that type of performance night in and night out.

This is game the Terps can and should win.  We all know that means nothing, but this is one of those games you put in the win column when the schedule comes out.  Here’s to being there to ensure that happens.  Go Terps!

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 16th, 2010 at 8:11 am 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.