Maryland vs Msu

[murph]

Not looking good

Checko played very well in his few minutes, nice to see.

Trimble didn't drive hardly at all in the first half, now going to it too much in the second half.

Layman disappeared again.

Stone not playing well.

Love to pull it out but not hopeful

[murph]

Agree. But Melo's first half has to be added to the uninspired performance. He showed up in the second half but may be a bit too late.

Not sure why they were so lack luster today, maybe it was the pressure of playing Michigan State at home but they do need to be able to overcome high pressure games and still play to their level of talent

[Jagwar]

Hard to be a top team with only 5 good players. Dodd, Nickens and Cekovsky just haven't developed, and aren't that good. Neither is Brantley. And it's never a good thing when Varun Ram is essentially your backup point guard.

Can't win when the bench doesn't contribute. This team is not a final four team. At best a Sweet 16 team.

[Satyr3206]

I've long given up on this being a Final Four team. I know it will never happen but Tremble and Stone both need another year of college. As usual we don't rebound well or shot particularly good from the outside. It was embarrassing to watch what Costello did to us. And what has happened to Layman? He seems to have disappeared this season. As for Turgeon, good recruiter but very mediocre coach. File this under Turtle Soup. This season is cooked:cool:

I agree. They just don't play like a cohesive team. And I've never thought Turgeon was a very good X and O's Coach.

[Finisher]

Yeah, what is the point of having all this talent if you're not going to coach it? Could you imagine Gary with this much talent? We seem to sleepwalk through games and wake up for 5-10 minute stretches and simply out talent most teams. But that doesn't work against tourney teams.

Two main issues with Turgeon are his in game coaching leaves a lot to be desired also nobody seems to develop under him. You either hit the ground running from day one (Trimble, Dez when he was here, Carter) otherwise you're stuck in stagnation (Layman, basically everyone else).

The way he rotates players, nobody seems able to get in good rhythms from game to game or even within games. Other than Trimble. Nickens and Ceko have become complete non factors, no excuse for that also those are the guys we're going to need to step up next year.

Just very frustrating with our amount of talent to get out efforted.

[Ooooooohhhh!!!!]

Can't win when the bench doesn't contribute. This team is not a final four team. At best a Sweet 16 team.

I've long given up on this being a Final Four team. This season is cooked:cool:

I agree. They just don't play like a cohesive team. And I've never thought Turgeon was a very good X and O's Coach.

Two main issues with Turgeon are his in game coaching leaves a lot to be desired also nobody seems to develop under him. Just very frustrating with our amount of talent to get out efforted.

This team is good enough right now to win the national title. If you don't believe that you're just being pessimistic after a loss. Saying "this season is cooked" is absurd. If I remember correctly Jay Bilas said at one point that Maryland was good enough to with it all. That's good enough for me.

I think the concerns over X's and O's are warranted. We don't run much offense. Most of what we do is based on driving to the basket. I am impressed by how well we pass, but it's all improv. I will say that I like how the team plays defensively. The interior rotations saved us quite often. The lack of rebounding on the defensive ending is just shy of infuriating. I watched Stone in particular while he was in the game and he let his man get position way too close to the basket. That's the root of the rebounding woes. As was mentioned it doesn't do much good to block out when you're under the basket.

There are so many positives with this team that I'm not going to get discouraged. A lack of effort and intensity is much easier to overcome than a lack of talent.

[Jagwar]

This team is good enough right now to win the national title. If you don't believe that you're just being pessimistic after a loss. Saying "this season is cooked" is absurd. If I remember correctly Jay Bilas said at one point that Maryland was good enough to with it all. That's good enough for me.

Because if Jay Bilas says it, then it must be true.

I'm not being pessimistic after a loss. This team has zero contributions from the bench right now other than minutes played (I'm considering Stone as a starter, not Dodd), and it's not as if it just started with Michigan State. The offense consists of isolation plays and pick and rolls. They have no backup point guard, which was supposed to be addressed by Brantley. Let me ask you this. If Trimble goes down... what happens to this team? Because that is what happened in last year's NCAA tourney 2nd round game, and there were no answers.

I will be pleasantly surprised if the Terps make it beyond the Sweet 16. It could happen, but this is a team with many holes.

[Finisher]

This team is good enough right now to win the national title

They have enough talent to win a title. But are they really "good" or consistent enough to do it? We're 1-3 against top 50 teams this season, expecting at least 5 straight wins against them in the tourney seems highly unlikely.

[ArtVanDelay]

Whenever birdwatcher agrees with you, you should probably question yourself.

I don't have a ton of confidence in this team right now, but they'll get hot at some point. They need to start rebounding.

[Tony-OH]

I agree. They just don't play like a cohesive team. And I've never thought Turgeon was a very good X and O's Coach.

Not only is he not a good X's and O's guy but players rarely develop. In fact, I can't think of one player that has become a much better player under him. If anything, they get a little better because of experience but they never seem to develop into their potential. He's a hell of a recruiter, but he's an average to slightly below average in game and developmental coach overall. When was the last time you thought, "Man, Turgeon outcoached that coach?" When was the last time after a timeout a great play was called and executed? When was the last time he made in game adjustments that swung the game around? His offense is basically give the ball to his stars and let them create.

this team has talent and if Melo is on they can beat anyone, but when he's not, this team is in deep trouble because they can't rebound effectively and they rely on Trimble to score or feed everyone.

[ChuckS]

The main problem I see is rebounding and defensive effort.

And our bench really is mediocre. Nickens does nothing on the court but jack up threes and he hasn't been sharp for most of the season. Cek and Dodd give you nothing offensively. Brantley obviously can't play....or he would be in there ahead of the walk-on Ram. The fact that a 5'9 walk-on is getting significant minutes speaks to our lack of depth.

Our starting five is solid, but whenever two or more of those guys are off their games we will struggle to beat good teams. We should be a Sweet 16 team, but there is so much parity around the NCAA that every team will have a decent shot to be eliminated by the Second Round.