Maryland Rides Balanced Performance to Second ACC Win over Boston College
It wasn't all that exciting, it wasn't always pretty, and it wasn't against the best competition, but you never turn down an easy road ACC win. That's a valuable, rare commodity in a league of parity. Maryland ended up with the lead from the start and quickly jumped out ahead of a sloppy Boston College team, eventually winning 73-57.
After a relatively one-man performance against Wake Forest - Greivis Vasquez had 30 points on 27 shots - Maryland came out and was absurdly balanced. Vasquez had 17; Cliff Tucker had 14; Adrian Bowie had 15; Landon Milbourne had 13. Four players in double-digits, all near each other, is tough to accomplish, but Maryland did it impressively.
Actually, a rather short bench - it only went 3 deep for the majority of the game - did surprisingly well. Bowie continued his good play of the past few games and Tucker was a solid offensive sparkplug without turning it over too much. Tucker even showed some long-range ability, knocking down all 3 of his attempted trifectas. After a close, disappointing ACC loss, this type of game was a blessing.
Continuing the trend of flipping the Wake Forest performance on its head, Vasquez switched from turnovers to assists - after a 7 TO game on Tuesday, he turned it over just twice while dishing out 9 assists.
Complaints are few and far between after this type of game, but it's important to note two things: first, that Boston College isn't a particularly impressive team. They did beat Miami and South Carolina, yes, but they also lost to Maine and St. Joseph's. This game is likely one of the latter performances, not the former.
Second, this game wasn't perfect. Vasquez, Bowie, and Tucker shined. Dino Gregory and Jordan Williams, however, were unbelievably quiet. They didn't need the points tonight, but they might later, and the disappearance of both - mostly offensively, but on the boards, too - doesn't bode well.
Worse, Sean Mosley's offensive performance still has me worried. I know he can become a #1 option, but he's been struggling lately. He's still awesome on the boards and getting loose balls, but he's also timid with the ball and hasn't been scoring with any consistency in the past three or four games.
Then again, their average games might be the result of others stepping up, nothing more. I'll wait until they start to have those problems when others don't back them up to truly worry, but these are hanging around in the back of my mind.
Regardless, Maryland sits at 2-1 in the ACC in good shape for the future. They're just one point from 3-0, and it's tough to argue that the first three games haven't been a huge success. I'll take it.
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Solid Performance
This game was definitely one of our better all around performances this year. Greivis played a great all around game and limited his turnovers and shot a high percentage. Finally the bench seems to be coming around, and if Tucker and Bowie continue to play at this level, good things will come for the Terps. Keep in mind this game was against BC, but it still is a road win in the league, and we will take them however we can get them. Not all was well, we seem to be missing a lot of easy layups and giving too many second shot opportunities. This could come back to bite us when we play the upper tier teams in the league. Not a perfect game, but definitely a good solid win for the Terps. Keep it up!
not to quibble...
but 6 boards in 22 minutes isn’t “unbelievably quiet.” It wasn’t one of Williams better games, and he’s still got a problem finishing against guys who are as big as him, but I thought he seemed active on the boards. We certainly have a bigger presence on the boards when he’s in the game. He’s just gotta learn how to finish or get fouled. These lame in-close misses are lame.
True on JW's boards
But it wasn’t all about JW’s boards. Look at him and Dino in tandem, particularly offensively. 49 minutes. 1 combined point, and it came from Dino.
That’s trouble.
but...
why look at them in tandem? Dino WAS unbelievably quiet… he’s just not an ACC level starter, that’s as plain as day. I agree with your point about Padgett in a later post. If I were Gary, I’d be dialing down Dino’s minutes. Padgett is an above average ACC rebounder, nearly 0.30/min. And Williams is a rebounding stud. We all agree we’d like to see more out of Williams offensively, but frankly we’ve got plenty of scorers on this team, so if Williams is mostly a rebounder and defender, that’s OK with me. But Dino is a major negative right now – poor rebounder for his position, not a good scorer, at best an average defender.

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