Some fun things from a busy day of Maryland sports

Wednesday was a busy, busy day for Maryland athletics. The football team signed 11 prospects on National Signing Day, while the basketball team picked up a crucial road win over Nebraska.

For us, Signing Day is always the busiest day of the year, even if Maryland has signed larger classes in recent cycles. In all, we posted 18 stories and received over 134,000 views on the site yesterday (which is about quadruple what a normal Wednesday during basketball season gets). Our hub of Signing Day updates easily led the way, and is still the place to go if you missed anything.

These three things didn’t get turned into stories, but I’d like to talk about them here.

The staff’s reaction to Lance LeGendre’s commitment.

The four-star dual-threat quarterback from New Orleans picked the Terps over Florida State, the long-assumed favorite in his recruitment. He visited College Park over the weekend, but the staff wasn’t sure whether or not they’d get him until he put on his Terps hat.

This video provides both a good look at what a team war room looks like on Signing Day, but also just how excited coaches are when someone formally says they want to play for them. Locksley was asked about that excitement and said it was a shame that was the only such video released because the staff celebrates every signature that comes in (although, in fairness, this was the one that was most up in the air, and it single-handedly changed the outlook at quarterback).

“Those are the same emotions we show with all 17 of those guys,” he said. “Any time you can convince kids to come to Maryland and show them what a great opportunity this place presents academically and athletically, we’re excited.”

LeGendre’s suit.

I mean ... this is just poetry.

In the history of commitment and signing announcements, I’m not sure anyone has dressed like this and then committed to Maryland. But LeGendre did. And the suit and hat match perfectly. And he’s now my favorite recruit because of it.

This Bruno Fernando dunk and stepover.

The sophomore center was one-on-one with Nebraska’s Tanner Borchardt, who fell to the ground and gave Fernando an opening to the basket. He took it with authority. Nebraska head coach Tim Miles was irate and got whistled for a technical foul.

Reaction to this play has been mixed; some people think Fernando did commit a charge and intentionally stomped on Borchardt, while others noticed Borchardt wrap his legs around Fernando as he went for the slam.

This is a Maryland website, so most of you reading this (and me writing this) are siding with the Terp. Objectively, it was two Maryland points, plus the technical, and an absolutely tremendous GIF. So it’s a good thing.

In other news

Here’s Mike Locksley’s National Signing Day press conference.

And here’s his Big Ten Network appearance.

Justin wrote about how Maryland’s big men and defense dominated the game.

In case you were on our site too much yesterday, here’s a fun FanPost about being on our site too much and thinking about it in the real world. (My story: every time I write that something “will likely” happen, I think of commenters here capitalizing the former Terps cornerback’s name in similar situations.)

Maryland men’s lacrosse is busting out the black helmets for Saturday’s game against Richmond.

And finally, good things are happening for former Maryland women’s basketball point guard Chloe Pavlech. (On National Women and Girls in Sports Day, no less!)