Ah, the joys of cupcakes. Sean Mosley scored 20 points, Dino Gregory had his second double-double of the season, six Terrapins finished in double-digits in points, and Maryland cruised to an easy victory over Longwood, more than doubling up the Lancers with a 106-52 final score. The win was Gary Williams' 665th, and Maryland fans held up "665" signs in the final minutes commerating the victory.
As you might expect with such a dominant performance, just about everyone looked great for Maryland: Gregory was fantastic early and finished with 14 and 11; Haukur Palsson looked like a star, hit his career-high in points in the first half, and ended up with 13 on 5-6 (2-3 from deep) shooting; Pe'Shon Howard and Terrell Stoglin combined for 26 and 10 assists; even Mosley showed up, albeit predictably, with 20.
Surprisingly, the only player who had a bad game (relatively speaking) was Jordan Williams, who finished with 9 points and 11 boards while struggling with foul trouble. Luckily, this was one game in which his services were completely unneeded.
Maryland led in just about every category imaginable, including huge advantages in both rebounding (51-25) and assists (28-10). The lead at halftime was 28, and things just kept getting worse for the Lancers in the second half.
Much like the Wake Forest game, you really can't take much of anything out of this. Longwood has to be one of the worst - and, incidentally, worst - teams in the nation. Blowing them out to the extent that Maryland did was exactly what Maryland should've done, nothing more and nothing less. And all of those fantastic individual performances from Gregory and Mosley and Palsson: I wouldn't get too excited about them if I were you.
I will say that there were a few positives, mostly that Maryland saw a strange look defensively and looked fine against it. Now, that probably has a lot to do with the fact that they're one of the worst defensive teams in the country, but hey: it's progress. The ball movement was really pretty solid, as was the shooting. It's actually worth noting that Maryland shot the ball from the line very well - 69% - and there's no defense at the stripe, so it shouldn't (theoretically) change. Over the past three games, they've shot 73% from the line, so hopefully those problems have passed.
For good measure, I'll throw in that Howard looked pretty good at point guard, which is important considering he'll probably be the PG the rest of the way for the Terps. He stayed under control and made good decisions for the most part, along with dropping a few epic dimes and hitting a couple of unexpected threes. His confidence has to be peaking right now, and you can see it in his game. He'll almost certainly start at Boston College this weekend, and that game will tell us a lot more about him.
(For the record, Terrell Stoglin performed almost as well, dropping 15 points on 6-10 shooting. Him having success is a good sign if it keeps up.)
And hey, Mychal Parker got playing time, so there's that. I don't know of anyone wishing for him to not get more PT, so
Past that, there's not much else. Good confidence game for Maryland, but we learned little about the Terps besides their inability to put up an eye-popping final score. Congrats to Gary on 665, but the real challenge - Boston College - is this weekend.