Melo Trimble has become the first member of our All-Mark Turgeon Team, an offseason exercise in which we’re voting on a "starting five" for Turgeon’s first five years as the head men’s basketball coach at Maryland.
The format here is pretty simple.
Voting runs Monday through Friday, because the number of days in the workweek beautifully coincides with the number of players allowed on the court at one time.
The rules are pretty simple: The highest vote-getter on the first day will be automatically on the team, and the rest of the guards will go back into the voting pool for any future rounds in which they are positionally eligible.
If the players spent time under both Turgeon and Gary Williams, you should consider their entire careers, because this is really about the players, not the coaches.
The breakdown is like this:
Monday: point guard
Tuesday: shooting guard/small forward
Wednesday: any guard/small forward
Thursday: power forward/center
Friday: power forward/center
On player classifications, we’ll make a few executive decisions as the voting wears on. You’ll find, for instance, that Jake Layman is considered a small forward, because he played more small than power forward during three of his four years. Etcetera.
To be eligible for inclusion, a player needs to have played 50 percent of Maryland’s total on-court minutes in one season, or 40 percent in two.
So, we’ll get right into it. Here are your candidates for Tuesday’s vote:
Shooting guard/small forward
Sean Mosley, 2008-12
Games | Points | Assists | Rebounds | Win Shares |
132 | 8.4. | 2 | 4.4 | 10.5 |
Turgeon only had Mosley for one year, but you should consider Mosley's entire body of work at Maryland. He had a strong four-year run by just about any metric. He wasn't an amazing scorer, but he was more than competent, and he always rebounded well. Offensively, his best season was his sophomore year in 2009-10, when Mosley shot better than 50 percent from the field and averaged 10 points.
Nick Faust, 2011-14
Games | Points | Assists | Rebounds | Win Shares |
102 | 9.3 | 2.2 | 3.8 | 6.2 |
Faust was Maryland's hot freshman in Turgeon's first season on the job, having committed under Gary Williams and elected to stay around. He was never efficient, but he managed nearly double-digit scoring averages and was a strong rebounder from either the backcourt or the wing. Faust transferred after the 2013-14 season.
Dez Wells, 2012-15
Games | Points | Assists | Rebounds | Win Shares |
98 | 14.3 | 2.6 | 4.8 | 11.6 |
Wells wasn't always efficient, but he had an incredible ride at Maryland. After transferring in following his expulsion from Xavier in 2012, Wells become Maryland's instant best player, a title he held until Melo Trimble arrived on campus in 2014. Wells piled up a lot of points and helped shepherd Maryland toward its 2014-15 turnaround.
Jake Layman
Games | Points | Assists | Rebounds | Win Shares |
141 | 10.2 | 1.1 | 4.8 | 14.4 |
Layman was a four-year contributor whose game improved virtually every year, sort of in the idealistic mold people put together in their minds for college athletes. He was by far at his worst as a freshman, made steady strides as a sophomore and then played at roughly an all-conference level for his final two seasons. He went to the Portland Trail Blazers in the second round of this year's NBA Draft.
Richaud Pack, 2014-15
Games | Points | Assists | Rebounds | Win Shares |
35 | 5.8 | 1.2 | 3.3 | 2.2 |
Pack's stay at Maryland was a short one, as he came to College Park on a one-year graduate transfer. But he helped Maryland a good bit in his 35 games, serving as a complement to guards Wells and Melo Trimble.
Jared Nickens, 2014-present
Games | Points | Assists | Rebounds | Win Shares |
71 | 5.7 | 0.4 | 1.6 | 3.4 |
Nickens has become Maryland's primary three-point gunner in his first two seasons. His points per game (6.1) and three-point success (39 percent) both fell off noticeably in his sophomore season. He's a catch-and-shoot specialist, and he went cold in the middle of the 2015-16 season, but he's had some high points, too.
Rasheed Sulaimon, 2015-16
Games | Points | Assists | Rebounds | Win Shares |
36 | 11.3 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 4.2 |
Sulaimon only played one year at Maryland, coming, like Pack, as a graduate transfer. Sulaimon wasn't a master of any particular trade at Maryland, but he had a strong overall season and acted as the team's best perimeter defender. After becoming the first player Mike Krzyzewski ever kicked off one of his Duke teams the season before, Sulaimon was – by every account so far – a model citizen and leader for the Terrapins.
So, let’s vote. Who joins Trimble on the All-Turgeon Team?