Terps land first of 2014: Romelo Trimble commits to Maryland

There's a pretty loaded class of 2014 combo guards locally, with three D.C.-area kids as consensus top-100 recruits. Maryland was almost always bound to land one. And they just did.

Thursday marked the birthday of Melo Trimble's mother, but the O'Connell junior guard gave Terps fans reason to join the celebration by committing to Maryland.

Trimble, whose final list also included Cincinnati and Xavier, made his announcement Thursday morning before flying out with his teammates for the Hilton Garden Inn Classic in Kentucky.

"I feel like I fit in real well with the program and I like Coach [Mark] Turgeon's coaching style because he lets you play,"Trimble said in an interview with The Post. "He talked about using me and [Suitland senior] Roddy Peters interchangably at the guard positions and he likes my shooting ability. This is where I want to be so I figured I'd commit now and get it out of the way."

Trimble's a 6-2 combo, probably more a shooting guard than a true point but has been working to switch that around. A four-star across the board, he's a consensus top-100 type and picked Maryland over not only Xavier and Cincinnati but also Miami, Notre Dame, Villanova, Temple, and UNLV. Trimble's never seemed a spectacular recruit, but he has good size and build, a quick first step, and has increasingly become a Mark Turgeon player: heady, smart, and consistent. He describes himself as a "crafty point guard", which would give Maryland a surplus of crafty point guards along with Seth Allen and Roddy Peters. Turgeon likes his guards crafty, I suppose.

A P.G. County native, Trimble also reflects the local emphasis Maryland's put on recruiting as of late, making him the third consecutive local to commit to the Terps. A D.C. Assault kid, the Under Armour and Dalonte Hill connections surely didn't hurt, either.

Maryland's in pretty significant need of guard depth, and they were always going to take at least one true guard in the 2014 class. It could end up being that they take two, depending on what happens with their pursuits of an elite wing - Rashad Vaughn, anyone? - but Trimble gives them a nice, early base to build the rest of the class upon. Gotta love getting early commitments, and it's something that I imagine the hard-working Turgeon and his well-connected staff will do more than just this once.

More coming soon, but I leave you with this: between Seth Allen and now Trimble, Maryland's guards really have the pencil mustache market cornered.