Terps lose 2

The Terps got a scare from Hampton at home last Monday in the quarterfinals of the CBE Classic and almost didn't make it to Kansas City for the championship rounds. When they got there, the team put together a display of sub-par (at best) basketball in two losses to #1 UCLA (71-59) in the semifinals and to Missouri (84-70) in the 3rd place game.

The shooting from beyond the arc was terrible in both games and could prove to be the biggest flaw in this year's team. Only a late triple from Eric Hayes against UCLA saved the Terps from their first 0-fer from behind the arc in nine years. Landon Milbourne's three in garbage time against Missouri did the same in the second game. Maryland shot a combined 2 of 26 from deep in Kansas City including numerous open misses. The good news is that simple regression to the mean will help the team improve as the near misses go down more often. But even then, it's clear that this team will struggle from deep after the loss of Mike Jones and even DJ Strawberry.

In part that is a result of the Gary Williams philosophy. His offense stresses getting the big men plenty of touches, getting mid-range shots for guards and creating points in transition and off of turnovers. His recruiting over the past two seasons has seen an influx of guards who excel at slashing and distributing but have weaknesses shooting.

The team continued to be careless with the ball resulting in dozens of turnovers over the two games. It was a combination of several things, not just one area of weakness. Passes were ill-advised or lazy. The frontcourt players tried to do to much and gave the ball away to the opponent rather than back to their own guards. And the Terps had at least seven offensive fouls against Missouri. Perhaps this isn't surprising given the opponents. UCLA might be the best defensive team in the nation and Missouri's 40 minutes of Hell offshoot will cause turnovers if nothing else. However the Terps were extremely careless in the first three games as well.

The loss on Monday night was expected. Even without Collison and Roll, UCLA is a top 15 quality team. The loss to Missouri stings a bit more though. It isn't entirely unexpected, although Missouri leading from the opening tip is a bit surprising, but with only Illinois and possibly VCU or Holy Cross left on the nonconference schedule as potential quality wins, losing two games in Kansas City could hurt if they find themselves on the bubble in March.

In game one the offense (OEff = 78.5) was wretched while the defense (DEff = 94.5) had a respectable effort. The consolation game saw some improvement on offense (OEff = 87) which was counterbalanced by the teams worst defensive effort (OEff - 104.5) of the season.

The trip was not without positives, though they were admittedly few and far between. Offensively, Maryland got to the line a good deal in both games and began to convert more often once there, hitting on 35 of 41 shots (85.3%). Rebounding also improved markedly against Missouri as the Terps owned the defensive glass while also rebounding a fair number of the own missed shots.