For 39 and a half minutes, there was no shortage of things I could've said about Maryland's game against College of Charleston: the missed free throws, the turnovers, the sensational Andrew Goudelock, the fact that Maryland lost to College of Charleston in their second game, and so on.
And then Pe'Shon Howard happened. And then I was left speechless.
There's really no other way to describe it, particularly with so much context. To make matters short, a fan favorite freshman point guard - that's Pe'Shon - took control of Maryland during the final minutes of a comeback against upstart College of Charleston. Maryland has been searching for a point guard through its first two games. Down by one with about 15 seconds left, the ball goes to Howard. He wastes a few seconds, starts to drive, steps back and nails a slight fade-away jumper. Maryland 75-74.
Goudelock got a shot at a game-winner after, but suffered one of his rare misses. Ballgame, and welcome to the legend of Pe'Shon Howard.
There's a lot to parse from a game like this, and it's something I'll have to do over the next few days (I have other work to do tonight, unfortunately). In fact, there's a lot to not like, mixed in with some palatable things. Don't think I'm trying to be too positive; this game was closer than it should've been. There's the free throw shooting: Maryland shot 5-18 from the line, a completely unacceptable performance that almost lost them the game. There's the turnovers: Maryland had 18 of them. There's also the impressive defensive performance from Cliff Tucker: Goudelock was unstoppable much of the game, but was held scoreless over the final five minutes when Tucker took over the assignment.
There was Dino Gregory: 0 points, 4 boards, 4 fouls. There was Jordan Williams: 26 points, 15 boards. There was Adrian Bowie, who played better than he'll get credit for. There was, of course, Pe'Shon, who might just claim the starting spot regardless.
But more on all that later. For now: it's just MVPe'.