I've been busy lately, so I missed a few posts in the past few days I could've done, but oh well. Here's what I've been thinking about today and yesterday.
- Even though Maryland never really made a concerted effort to shut down one of Tech's Big 3, their defense was good enough to end up shutting down Jeff Allen and keeping Malcolm Delaney in check anyway. The offense also came through - even if they didn't shut down Allen or Delaney down completely, they'll still would've won.
- Clemson will certainly be a tough game. I knew they were beatable, and it was proved last night, but I doubt they look past the Terps now. Indeed, it'll probably be one of Clemson's best games all year. I still think Maryland can beat them, though.
- Lance Stephenson set the New York state career scoring record recently, which is a big deal as NYC is seens as the "Hoops Mecca." In that article I saw a quote from Lance Sr. that I hadn't seen before: "Coming from New York, the fans just want to see a show every night; there’s no real support. He wants to go to a place where the fans are behind him." Maybe I'm reading into that too much, but it seems a pretty damning indictment of SJU, doesn't it?
- More news on Lance: besides the visit to Kansas, the rumor now is that even more schools are entering the mix for Mr. Born Ready, with Wake and UCLA among them (recently, I had said he wasn't considering them - guess I was wrong). Both are very scary. UCLA is very similar to USC, except they'll actually get some exposure on a national level. Wake seems to consistently get big recruits, and they're very similar to Maryland. I still think Maryland is the team to beat - lots of exposure, close enough for Mom and Pop to watch every game, if he has a good year he has a guaranteed shoe deal, Padgett is headed there, and the perfect supporting cast - good enough that they'll make a run into the postseason, but bad enough that he still gets to be the man.
- Even more on Lance: check out Byron Mouton's words (gotta love him):
"I told him, ‘The ACC, the University of Maryland, the facilities, the exposure – man, I think it is a great opportunity for you to come in right away and play on a big stage like this,’" Mouton said. "He got a little excited about that and was like, ‘You are right.’"