I don't have a lot of time on this one, so I'll keep it short: Maryland played really poorly one half, really well the other half, and beat Elon 76-57.
Okay, I'll go a little deeper than that, but I really am short on time here. Everyone knew that Elon was a small, outside-shooting oriented team coming into this game. They would go as far as their shooting (and Maryland's poor play) would carry them. For one half, that was pretty far: they knocked down 6 three-pointers and Maryland couldn't buy a shot. Average rebounding and relative inability to not turn the ball over hurt the Terps, too. Maryland was losing by many as 11 and trailed by 2 at halftime.
The second half was a vastly different story. Despite a few runs by Elon, Maryland - and, more specifically, Jordan Williams - dominated the second stanza. Williams recorded another double-double - 24 points and 13 boards - and pitched in four blocks. The blocks are an interesting story: Maryland had 11 on the day, most of which came in the second half and contributed heavily to an improved defensive performance.
Despite the solid team performance in the second half and gaudy winning margin, there was a lot of negative in this game for Maryland. Or, if you're an optimist - and, surprisingly, I've been taking the optimistic viewpoint a lot this season - a lot of learning moments. Rebounding needs some work. Gary Williams has never been fond of boxing out, but Elon, which is a short team, stuck with the Terps on the glass for the vast majority of the game. Maryland pulled away in the final minutes substantially, but at the under-four in the second half, the Phoenix had more offensive rebounds than the Terrapins.
Same goes for turnovers: Maryland had nearly twice as many as Elon in the first half. And the same goes for three-point shooting: with the number of open looks the Terrapins gave up in the first half, it's a wonder Elon only hit six of them. And, of course, there's the problem that Maryland was so unprepared for a team as lowly-regarded as Elon.
There was also a lot of positivity, at least once the second half rolled around. Williams was outstanding. There were a few other nice individual performances. Maryland seemed to adjust very well at halftime, stepping up their perimeter defense, taking better care of the ball, and playing with much more intensity in the second half. After all, they did outscore the Phoenix 41-18 after halftime.
As far as other individual performances go, Sean Mosley finally seemed to come back to life again, with 10 points and 7 boards. It wasn't an amazing game from him, but after the past few games, it was something.
Adrian Bowie won't get enough talk, but he had an amazing statline: 14 points, 8 rebounds, 7 assists, no turnovers. He made the couple of boneheaded plays he usually makes - like lowering his head and barreling into a forced layup - but they weren't as bad as normal and he was very, very good outside of those couple of plays. Very impressive today.
That's all from me: I've got to pack up. Thoughts on the game?