NCAA Tournament: #10 Maryland vs. #7 UCONN

[scbalt52]

Get a rebound! Come on Terps. Winner plays Alabama.

[Beef Supreme]

Horrendous officiating. The refs should be embarrassed. Morsell didn't even touch Bouknight and fouled him out. They just called blocks on both ends of the court when offensive players pushed into the defender. They let Bouknight push over a defender earlier and called that a block, too. They called only ONE of three kicked balls -- how can they miss that???

[Beef Supreme]

And it was totally unnecessary calling the flagrant on Scott.

[Finisher]

Felt like a 20 point win that the refs kept semi close.

Anyway, props for keeping their composure and hitting critical threes and free throws. And, of course, bringing the stellar defense.

Feel like this is possibly the best TEAM Turgeon has had in his entire run here. The Trimble/Dez team was the other that gelled to this degree. He's had bigger name teams but this one brings the defense every game and plays unselfish. Also Ayala, like Trimble, plays smart and under control unlike Cowan.

Really hope they can hit their threes again against Alabama. Hopefully they're not content.

[ArtVanDelay]

There’s a path to the Elite 8 if we can somehow knock off Alabama.  Turgeon can change the narrative.  I expect him to fail miserably.

[ChuckS]

9 hours ago, Finisher said:

Felt like a 20 point win that the refs kept semi close.

Anyway, props for keeping their composure and hitting critical threes and free throws. And, of course, bringing the stellar defense.

Feel like this is possibly the best TEAM Turgeon has had in his entire run here. The Trimble/Dez team was the other that gelled to this degree. He's had bigger name teams but this one brings the defense every game and plays unselfish. Also Ayala, like Trimble, plays smart and under control unlike Cowan.

Really hope they can hit their threes again against Alabama. Hopefully they're not content.

I like this group.  They play good defense.  They don't turn the ball over too much and they take advantage of slow defenses.  But this isn't close to the best team Turgeon has had.  The biggest guy on the floor for us a lot of the time is 6'7 235 and we are also without a real go-to scorer, although Ayala filled that role last night. Last year we had the same cast as this season, plus Cowan and Jalen Smith and had a share of the Big 10 title. That was a better squad.  There have been other more talented squads.  This season we were possibly a loss to Michigan State away from the NIT. 

With that said, there is lot of parity in college basketball this year and I would not be surprised if we were able to sneak into the Sweet 16.  I'm excited for Monday. 

[Oriole4Life]

I totally missed this thread. I agree the officiating was horrible. Giving up tons of offensive rebounds in the first half really annoyed me. Gonna have to box out and crash the boards against Alabama.

Keys to victory are defense and three point shooting. I liked some of the cuts to the basket, those back to back slams by Scott and Wiggins were a thing of beauty. Wiggins has had several rim rattlers this year.

[Finisher]

8 hours ago, ChuckS said:

I like this group.  They play good defense.  They don't turn the ball over too much and they take advantage of slow defenses.  But this isn't close to the best team Turgeon has had.  The biggest guy on the floor for us a lot of the time is 6'7 235 and we are also without a real go-to scorer, although Ayala filled that role last night. Last year we had the same cast as this season, plus Cowan and Jalen Smith and had a share of the Big 10 title. That was a better squad.  There have been other more talented squads.  This season we were possibly a loss to Michigan State away from the NIT. 

With that said, there is lot of parity in college basketball this year and I would not be surprised if we were able to sneak into the Sweet 16.  I'm excited for Monday. 

Emphasis on the word TEAM. Obviously not the most talented. Although Wiggins is plenty talented. You also have Scott who plays bigger than his height. Give me a group that brings the defense, plays unselfishly and smart, fundamentally sound ball. Ayala simply plays smarter and more under than control than Cowan.

[ChuckS]

1 hour ago, Finisher said:

Emphasis on the word TEAM. Obviously not the most talented. Although Wiggins is plenty talented. You also have Scott who plays bigger than his height. Give me a group that brings the defense, plays unselfishly and smart, fundamentally sound ball. Ayala simply plays smarter and more under than control than Cowan.

I think you are getting a little carried away.  When you barely make the NCAA tournament as a 10 seed how can you can grant them best team status?  This is a team that lost to Penn State (11-14) twice. There have been five teams in the Turgeon era that had higher seeds going into the tournament and all went to the second round of the NCAA's (one Sweet 16).  That doesn't include last year's squad that was a top 20 team in the country.

It may be Turgeon's best coaching job as far as getting the most out of the talent, but that is a completely different argument.   I would compare this to the year that Gary Williams took us to the second round of the NCAA's with David Neal as his center.  

[Finisher]

This actually feels like a Gary team. Honestly I could give a crap about seeding and record. Guys either play defense and play smart, or they don't. This is the only Turgeon team other than Trimble's freshman year that actually plays defensive-minded, cohesive, smart basketball. I'll just leave it at that.

 

[Finisher]

BTW we're 32 on kenpom rankings. Only a couple Turgeon teams were ranked clearly higher.

[Hallas]

7 hours ago, ChuckS said:

I think you are getting a little carried away.  When you barely make the NCAA tournament as a 10 seed how can you can grant them best team status?  This is a team that lost to Penn State (11-14) twice. There have been five teams in the Turgeon era that had higher seeds going into the tournament and all went to the second round of the NCAA's (one Sweet 16).  That doesn't include last year's squad that was a top 20 team in the country.

It may be Turgeon's best coaching job as far as getting the most out of the talent, but that is a completely different argument.   I would compare this to the year that Gary Williams took us to the second round of the NCAA's with David Neal as his center.  

For what it's worth, if we beat Bama (who I think is an overseed at 2) then we face the winner of UCLA/Abilene Christian in the s16.  So this team getting to the round of 8 (and thus getting the furthest in the NCAAT that Turgeon has ever gotten) is not really all that inconceivable.   Granted beating Bama is no easy task, but we match up decently with them (they don't have a dominant big man to abuse us in the paint) and we have beaten teams ranked in the low teens or better already so it's not exactly an impossible ask.

 

I honestly thought UConn at 7 was an underseed, especially if Bouknight was playing, but we dominated them, and i agree that this should have been a 15-20 point win if the refs didn't keep bailing out Bouknight.