Wonderful game by everyone involved. The intensity from everyone, from Gary to the fans to the players was just phenomal. The second half felt like at least two games fit inside 20 minutes, due to the sheer emotion and - even though I hate repeating myself - intensity. My thoughts:
- Landon Milbourne was gigantic today. Absolutely phenomal game from him. Every single game he plays, he seems to get better and better at playing at the 4. This might've been his official breakout game. He had 23 points, and every single one of them was deserved. He rebounded well, and that dunk on the fast break pretty much ended the game.
- Vasquez also played very well. He ended up fouling out, which was obviously bad, but Maryland had already wrapped the game up. He ended up with 17, and didn't make any glaringly bad plays. Similarly to the GT game, I think he's perfected the "new Vaz" image.
- If there was one biggie to the game, the one thing that put the Terps ahead, it was free throw shooting. 24-26 is just phenomenal. Perhaps more shocking was that 23 of the 26 shots came in the second half. That's just weird. They shot very well from the line earlier in the year, but the shooting has really lacked since the start of ACC play. If they can get back to shooting 90%ish as a team, that one big upset will be much easier.
- Gold unis are so sweet. Oh, and the entire team should get mohawks. Bowie is the only man on that team. It looked like AB and Landon made a deal to both get mohawks, and Landon chickened out halfway through. We just need Hayes to grow out his hair, Vaz to get cornrows, and Neal to switch to dreads. Then we'd have the perfect team.
- Dino Gregory was oddly quiet tonight. Defninitely an off-night, it seemed.
- Someone needs to tell Dave Neal to stop shooting threes. I get that he's a halfway decent shooter from there, but at the start of the game he was just chucking them up. If he's wide open, give it a go. Otherwise, stay under the basket.
- There's still a chance. Three more wins is completely possible. Win one of Wake, Duke, Clemson, or UNC then beat NCSt and UVA. If they show up against UVA and NCSt, they'll be wins. If they can play the way they did today against Wake, Duke, Clemson or UNC, one of them will drop. Then March gets to be a fun, anxiety-filled month in which our hearts will likely be broken by getting the #1 seed in the NIT.
- Gary has coached 100x better and the players have played 100x better since "the incident". It's heartwarming.
- Stats haven't fully come out, so I'll post more thoughts tomorrow after I get a look at them.