Four Things We Learned from the Terps' Loss to Pitt

I’m a longtime reader and have finally decided to throw my hat into the comment section.

(1) I still think the free throws will come. It seems to me like the missing is contagious. This is especially true on the front ends of the one and one. That’s a pressure shot, and when everyone is missing free throws they becomes exponentially harder. Padgett looks to have pretty bad form, but despite their overall struggles, I’m confident we’ll end up shooting a respectable percentage for the year. (At least I hope so, there is nothing more frustrating).

(2) Tucker is a legit scorer. The first two games of the year, I kind of held my breath every time he took one of those coast to coast, slightly out of control routes to the basket. But, after tonight, I’m all in favor of this. Sure, he might turn the ball over now and again (as he did towards the end), but he’s our best pure scorer and 1 on 1 creator and we need him to be aggressive when he has the opportunity. I see him making a name for himself in the ACC this year.

(3) I think we’ll be holding our breath a lot this year when Jordan gets 2 fouls. You’re right, we have very little depth in the front court, but we managed that last year, and I expect us to do the same this year.

(4) I’m with you on the competitive thing. I’m more optimistic about this season tonight than I was before the loss. This team plays hard and like last years team, I think they are going to be enjoyable to watch. I love teams that play hard, play tough defense, and make the extra pass. Usually this translates to a competitive team. So far this team has shown all three qualities.

Tomorrow is a big game. I would hate to go 0-2 on NY when we easily could have one the first game. Go Terps!

First of all, Gregory was a defensive monster today. 4 blocks and I don’t know how many charges drawn. But the depth inside is scary thin as you mentioned. Weijs is just too thin to keep big man out of the paint, Padgett does not look good and Palsson is not the answer either. Hopefully something clicks for Padgett or this will be a serious issue.

I’ve been calling it since late last season. What he did in limited minutes last year impressive and his fearlessness foretold of this years role as the top scoring option among our gaurds.

Tons of foul shots on both sides. The veteran Pitt players probably missed a lot of free throws at the Garden before they made a number last night because they played quite a few games there in their career. Besides Padge who played there? Advantage Pitt. If Gary is an inside first guy then we will have to improve foul shooting. In time.

Great job.

I have been a die-hard fan for 20 years. This was the first time I went to a game that we lost (or even saw a game on tv that we lost) and didn’t leave angry. Walking out of MSG I told my girlfriend, “you know, that was fun. we played pretty well, showed a lot of promise, and had we hit a few free throws we would have pulled off a major upset.” I know that we are never supposed to be happy with losses and there are glaring holes in the team, but, frankly, I really like the direction the program is heading in. I think we will beat some teams this year and come tournament time will be pretty darn good.

That said, I would trade my first born for a Baru commitment.

Last night left me feeling optimistic about the future. That said- tonight is huge. With a win tonight the NYC trip is a complete success no matter how you look at it. A loss tonight and you are 3-2 with no quality wins and no real chances for wins until the Temple game. Let’s get a W tonight!!

I agree with the overall context of the the post and most of the comments, but I think we can fairly say we learned five things last night – the Terps are undermanned inside. They were outrebound 15-6 on the offensive glass, 49-28 for the game. Other than Williams (8) and Mosely (6), no one blocked out or hit the boards. Gregory played ten feet from the basket and recorded just two rebounds in 35 minutes of play. Padgett recorded one in ten minutes of play. That ain’t gonna cut it. Obviously Pankey and Parker aren’t ready to play yet. Weijs looked respectable. But interior play could be a major issue.

Stoglin took a lot of heat from Bobby Knight last night for putting up a lot of shots. Personally, I liked it. He can score. Only Williams and Tucker scored in double figures last nigt. Stoglin’s line: 3-6 FG, one offensive rebound, one turnonover, 2-3 FT, 16 minites. He also changed the ‘feel’ of the game, making it more up-tempo, which is to Maryland’’s advantage. Maybe I’m not sold on Bowie. He played solid ball, but I think the Terps are limited in how good they can be with Bowie as the starting PG.

I think tonight will be a better indication of the potential that this team has. I was at the Garden last night and if Pitt is truly the #4 team in the country then we are a ranked team as well. I think when it all shakes out, Pitt is only in the high teens. Texas and Illinois can run and score and both have the potential to be better teams. If we can hang tonight, I think despite 2 losses that we have a solid team. If we get run out of the building, continue to miss 3s, and cant hit a foul shot for our lives, this is going to be a long year.

Okay, enough about this moral victory stuff. I was at the game last night and I have no idea how that other guy had fun. That was painful to watch, knowing if we could just hit a free throw(cringing every time we went to the line) that we should have been winning the game by 3-6 points the whole time. If you had watched first 3 games of this team you already knew we were better then people said. I knew we would hang with pitt(who is also overrated and will not be a top 10 team at the end of the year). This was a missed opportunity plain and simple. The FT’s cost us the game, and Illinois is going to be another tough test tonight.

Looking back at the end of the year this will be seen as a missed oppportunity, not a moral victory

I thought we looked pretty good defensively last night. at least in spurts. we seemed to overwhelm pitt with our pressure defense. it could just be that pitt isn’t yet in mid-season form…

that 3 point shot they hit at the end of the first half (leading to a 4 pt halftime lead for Pitt instead of 1) was sloppy and hinted at what was to come. Kid needs to think and play smart or sit till he can. Pe Shon getting the 2 early fouls put us in that bind.

makes rebounding advantage look a lot worse…on missed free throws, a defensive rebound is almost a given. Terps win tonight would still make this a good road trip.

If Jordan didn’t pick up that 2nd foul late in the first half Pitt would have never gone on the run they did and we would have kept control of the game…despite of this the way we came back was impressive!

Foul shooting has a lot to do with release and rotation. Padgett does look like his body is stiff and he’s line driving it somewhat and as a result his shot lacks arch and that subtle whole body fluidness in his release. But beyond using arch and bending your knees or subtlely using your body in your shot the big thing is the shooting hands fingertip release and the rotation of the ball created from the fingertips (slight backspin). This essentially is a players natural shooting stroke.

Fortunately both Padgett and Jordan have soft hands and when they are able to shoot it with a smooth release from their shooting hand the ball gives that nice backspin rotation and you can tell it’s a good stroke. Jordan would not make as many of those amazing low post position shots if he didn’t have the nice release he has. So where the mastery comes from is finding and practicing the shooting hands release & rotation. The best way to to this is by starting close to the basket (1 foot away) and doing 20 or 30 super easy 1 foot shots just to get that release motion warmed up and than moving back gradually (2 foot, 4 foot…until you are at the line). Once the same easy release from 1 foot away is experienced from the foul line than you are shooting foul shoots from your shooting hands natural stoke and you’ve found your pure release. One other practice method that can be utilized is once a players natural stroke is found from the line is to practice shooting it with a little more trajectory or arch with that natural release. This helps condition the imagination of the shooter to having arch in their shoot to begin with.

We are going to take Illinois down tonight!!! This team will be hungry from last night…we could have won that game and we are going to come out all the more hungry. It’s going to happen. Everyone on this team is going to take it up a notch and tonights game may be the best game we’ve seen so far from these amazing young terps!!!

ready to play. Last nights although it was a loss

 game has given us all an appetite for victory and confidence that we can bring it!