Terps Open ACC Slate at Long Last
Good bye non-conference schedule, hello ACC Schedule. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy watching the Terps no matter who they play, but there is something special about playing ACC games. And for some unknown scheduling process, the Terps are among the last teams to get things going despite both the Terps and the Noles having nearly the entire week off. And to think this doesn’t have Gary Williams’ attention, would be just plain wrong. He mentioned it immediately after the Terps took care of UNC Greensboro way back on last Sunday on his post game radio interview.
Enough about the scheduling oddity, let’s focus on the Maryland and Florida State. The Noles are ranked #19 in the ESPN poll, #18 in the AP, and come into the game with a 13-2 record. Their best win was an early ACC win over Georgia Tech, and their two losses came at the hands of Florida and Ohio State.
Solomon Alabi(7′-1″) leads the Noles in scoring with 12.1 points, and adds 6.9 boards and 2.9 blocks per game. It should be an interesting challenge for Jordan Williams and Dino Gregory. FSU is deep as they have 9 players that play at least 15 minutes per game.
As a Team the Noles are scoring 73 points per game and are leading the ACC in scoring defense by allowing 56.9 points. I think a lot of that has to do with the inside presence with of Alabi. Offensively they are hitting .479% from the floor, .362% from three, and have a +7.7 rebounding margin over their opponents.
After seeing all that, what are the keys for the Terps? It starts with keeping Greivis Vasquez hot. He has been doing it all for the Terps lately, and he needs to continue that. Also, the Terps have to continue going inside and try and take it Alabi. It would be a great advantage to get him into foul trouble.
It would also be nice if the Terps can hit some outside shots to try and open it up inside. Eric Hayes needs to bounce back from his poor game against UNC-G. I will be really keeping an eye on how Landon Milbourne plays tonight. He has been playing well of late, but he still concerns me against some of the bigger lineups defensively.
So with any luck today, and some solid play, the Terps can get their first marquee win to start building the tournament resume. A loss won’t be the end of the world, but holding serve at home this year, is a must. There are a lot of teams that are going to be bunched up in the middle of the pack, as it really doesn’t appear there are true elite teams this year. Tune in at 5:30 to see what happens, and if you go to the game, make it a home court advantage! Go Terps!
Sphere: Related Content
This entry was posted
on Sunday, January 10th, 2010 at 9:38 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.
