Maryland Steamrolls Longwood, Crosses Century Mark

by Ben Broman on Jan 19, 2010 9:56 PM EST in Basketball

It might not've helped much in development. It might have nearly caused an injury to one of the team's best players. And it might have hurt RPI. But there's one thing positive it did do: we can now reset the Maryland Terrapins triple-digit counter. It had been 1,133 days (or 27,192 hours, if you want to be precise) since Maryland had last scraped past the century mark, but they ended up with over 100 tonight by steamrolling Longwood, 106-55.

The Terps received a tepid contribution from their fearless leader, Greivis Vasquez, who ended up with just 10 points - nearly all of which came in the second half - but it really didn't matter. Everyone, for basically the first time all year, contributed significantly.

Sean Mosley and Jordan Williams were arguably the best players on the night - Mosley missed major time with a potentially scary but ultimately benign back injury and still ended up with 21, and Williams notched his second career double-double - but this isn't a game to analyze performances in. Maryland was in a zone against a pretty terrible team.

Rather, Maryland should appreciate the easy win and take solace in the fact that people not named contributed. Cliff Tucker and Adrian Bowie both still looked good. Landon Milbourne looked great again. Eric Hayes was his normal solid self. But again, this isn't a game to analyze.

Perhaps the only thing that you or Gary Williams can take from this is the performances of James Padgett and Dino Gregory. This was the first game that both Dino and James both saw significant minutes in, meaning it was the first time that there was a true, equal comparison. I'm not sure how much of a difference it'll make, but Padge - to me - proved that he should be receiving more playing time. He still has problems with his game *cough*freethrowshooting*cough* but he has the best post moves on the team and was more productive than Dino in about the same minutes.

That's not say he ran away with it and should take over for Dino. After being called out by Gary earlier this week for not "getting stats", he came out and got a few stats - he only had 6 points, but 4 came on emphatic putback dunks, and paired that with 7 rebounds.

Padgett didn't blow Dino out of the water, but he did outperform him and showed that he belongs, even if belonging consists of nothing more than receiving more than 4 minutes in a blowout ACC win.

Like I said earlier, there's not too much to take from it. Longwood is pretty awful in RPI and won't be upsetting any giants anytime soon, so this win might actually hurt RPI. Regardless, it gave a nice little confidence boost, a break from the intensity of ACC play, and a chance to fully evaluate James Padgett. Nothing wrong with that.

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You're right...

Takeaways are limited in a game like this.

However, to me there are a few notable ones:

-Padgett is clearly more comfortable operating in the paint than Gregory, who is basically a ball of nerves every time he has to do something with the ball. Gregory is a better FT shooter, leaper and help defender, but it’s hard to overcome his offensive deficiencies. Based on what I’ve seen, if you assume that JWill and Milbourne are going to get 55 of the 80 frontcourt minutes, I think the remaining 25 minutes should be divided up evenly, depending on matchups.

-Hayes showed incredible spark and aggressiveness early in the game – as well as Milbourne and Mosley converted scoring opportunities, I thought it was Hayes who really set the tone for us with some early points, aggressive and accurate passes, and just overall heady play. You may not see a huge leap from last year to this year in his stats, but I think it’s obvious that Hayes has really improved his overall game, especially on offense. The big question is whether he is willing to be aggressive offensively in situations where that is necessary, like he did late last season. I am optimistic.

-This was a great game for Mosley to regain confidence in his shooting/scoring ability.

Also, I wanted to note that — somewhat shockingly — the Terps are now ranked #18 overall in the most accurate ranking system out there (kenpom.com), trailing only Duke and Clemson in the ACC. If we can win, say, three of the next four games, we will be in a very good position to make a run at the second or third spot in the conference standings.

by jellisjenius on Jan 20, 2010 1:52 PM EST reply actions