Turtledroppings.com – Maryland Football And Basketball Blog

The hype had built to an all time high for a game at the Comcast Center. It was senior night for Greivis Vasquez, Eric Hayes, and Landon Milbourne. Add to the fact that arch nemesis Duke was coming to town and that added to the raucous environment. Oh and just incase you needed a little more, a first place tie was up for grabs in the ACC. And as expected the Maryland crowd was ready. There were signs o plenty. My personal favorite was the nearly life size cut outs of Vasquez With the moveable arms to make him look as if though he was doing the shimmy. I always say the Duke game makes Comcast look like a WWE event.

On the court the Terps did exactly what they had to. They took control early and kept the crowd at a fever pitch. The highlight being the Jordan Williams posterization of Scheyer on the 3 on 2 fast break. That nearly blew the roof off the building. You also have to credit Eric Hayes and Sean Mosley for the quick start that allowed the Terps to build a 14 point lead.

Of course we all knew that was not going to last and Duke would find a way back into the game. Thanks to a stingy 3-2 zone Duke cooled of Marylands red hot offense and started making some shots of their own to cut the lead to two at the half.

The second half of the game was incredible. I thought I was going to pass out. Duke went up early to about 6 I believe and I kind of wondered if maybe it wasn’t meant to be. However, the Terps had a lot more in the tank. There were two keys for me. One was the big dunk by Milbourne and the play of Adrian Bowie. First, the Milbourne dunk just absolutely gave the momentum back to the Terps and put the crowd into yet another frenzy. Then the play of Bowie was huge. It allowed Vasquez to stay on the bench a little longer to get rested for the stretch run. Bowie was perfect on the day, and was the spark Maryland needed.

The last 6 minutes or so was a great back and forth between Vasquez and Scheyer were each answered the other. Late in the game it was Vasquez’s time to shine and he did just that. He was able to get in the lane and hit those off balanced shots that put the Terps up for good. Thanks to Mosley and Jordan Williams free throw shooting, the Terps were able to knock off theDukies.

There were so many great moments in the game and some really great play. I don’t think I mentioned it but Jordan Williams was a stud coming down the stretch. He had that big put back as part of his 15 points and 11 boards. What stands out the most to me was it really was a great team win. If I run through the roster, I can find a couple of really positive things to say about each player.

So there you have it. Maryland finishes its home schedule with a perfect 8-0 conference record. Up next is the season finale at UVA. That was a great game, and I can only hope Maryland can find its way to meet Duke again in the ACC Tournament!

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 4th, 2010 at 6:54 am and is filed under Uncategorized. 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.