Maryland vs. Michigan State

[ArtVanDelay]

8pm on ESPN.

Baylor and Florida State both lost today, so this is a good opportunity for the Terps to creep closer to that 1 line.  Duke, San Diego State, and Gonzaga all have tough games tonight as well, wouldn’t be surprised if at least one of them loses.

[ArtVanDelay]

14-2...typical start for the Terps

[JR Oriole]

Michigan St would destroy Kansas playing at this level.  Can’t beat a team shooting 88% from the field no matter what you do 

[Oriole4Life]

Scott is playing very well. Great pass by Stix going out of bounds.

[ArtVanDelay]

Refs haven’t been calling fouls all game and then decide to call one on a clean block.

[ArtVanDelay]

Get a damn rebound please.

[Oriole4Life]

Stix playing great defense as usual. He's the only one rebounding too. Luckily MSU has missed most of their second chances.

Wiggins missed a couple open threes. Cowan is trying his hardest to score, pressing a bit.

[ArtVanDelay]

This is such a bad shooting team and it’s going to kill us at some point.

[ArtVanDelay]

Not sure why Cowan continues to drive to the hoop wildly and fall down.  He hasn’t gotten a single call yet......so maybe try something else?

[Oriole4Life]

Terps getting abused on the boards all game. Our lack of size aside from Stix is apparent. So is our lack of depth. Still some time to make a run.

[Hallas]

78-66.

It's Michigan State, and it's kind of hard to stop a team that can't miss a 3 when you can't hit them yourself.  Other than Cowan playing kind of questionable at times, I didn't think we played that badly other than the fact that we couldn't hit open looks.  We also needed to pick up boards better.  I counted 3 triples off offensive rebounds that weren't really defendable because we were trying to scramble for the loose ball.  And then there's the 60 footer by Winston to end the first half...

Pretty generously called game for Maryland by the refs.  I still think they call too many touch fouls and not enough contact fouls in the paint, but it is what it is.

[hatter]

If Michigan State plays like that ......Also, Stix got knocked around pretty badly. Get to the leg press young man.

[JR Oriole]

Michigan State was the number 1 team in the country in the preseason polls and they played like that on Saturday night.  They are the most talented team in the Big 10, and so after we came back and stole that game from them in East Lansing, I am not at all surprised they came out with payback on their minds and got it.  Seeing how fast they were moving out of the gate and whipping passes around, I knew it was going to be hard to beat them.  While there may have been areas where the Terps could have been better tonight, this to me just looked like a Spartans team that was determined to win after what happened two weeks ago.  At least if we meet in the Big 10 tournament, we won't be trying for an extremely difficult three game sweep on them. 

[ArtVanDelay]

Thank god we had those two miraculous road wins over Michigan State and Minnesota, or we’d be 2 games behind MSU instead of 1 game ahead.

Here’s how I see the Big Ten shaking out:

Terps 14-6

MSU 14-6

Wisconsin 14-6

Illinois 13-7

Iowa 12-8

Ped State 12-8

Our only chance to win the B1G outright is to go on the road and beat Rutgers, who will be fighting for their tournament lives.  Tall task for a Turgeon team in March.  The final game against Michigan won’t be a cakewalk either.  At this point, I’m just hoping that we don’t lose out and not even get a share of the regular season title.

Would anyone be surprised if the Minnesota win ended up being our last of the season?  Lose to Rutgers and Michigan, lose our first Big Ten Tourney game (as we seem to do yearly), and then stumble into the tourney as a 5 seed and lose to Liberty or Stephen F Austin.  I don’t think it’s likely but I also wouldn’t be surprised.

[Oriole4Life]

If we lose our first Big Ten tourney game I'll be beyond angry. We need to win that tournament.