But who will win? Can we get a ACC win this year in fact? I suspect the answer is “yes”,
but I do further suspect that we can count our ACC wins on one hands worth of fingers when this year is all said and done. I was leaning towards taking Maryland. As I plan to give a long hard look at any ACC team that has a good or a upperclassman heavy backcourt. But reports suggest that……
Mr. Hayes of Maryland (in the pic on the right) is out for our game. Mr. Hayes would have
given Maryland 2 very big staring G’s. Possibly the biggest backcourt we would have faced all year. Hud’ is big enough to match-up, but the rest of our backcourt youngins are not. So we may be catching Maryland at just the right time. But what do the Terps bring to the table b’street?
- Only 1 roadie so far for the Terps. But it did give PHNC’s local team, the Charlotte 49’ers their only home L of the year, and the Terps have had a fairly testy sched’ so far, with several OOC big-names dotting their 2007-2008 resume.
- Maryland is currently playing their best Defense of the year, as they have cut their FG% allowed by nearly 5% over their last 5 games; (Mr. Hayes was a big part of that, as he leads Maryland in Steals); On top of that, the Terps were already 7th in FG% Defense allowed nationally, and 7th in NC2A Blocks.
- Maryland is what I’ll call very unSmall. They have no one south of 6`2“, and 12 different ballers between 6`5“ and 6`10“. WOW! Talk about being able to switch in Man-to-Man and avoid mis-matches. Pat Riley would love this bunch.
- The Terps are a bit nubile, as they have 11 underclassmen on their Roster. Prolly even younger than we are, when taken on the whole.
- Maryland has some Turnover ills (most young backcourts do), and the Terps are not much as 3 point bombing teams go, either in 3 Point%, or in 3 Point attempts nor makes. (which makes perfect sense seeing how tall they are)
Maryland is what I’d call a sleeper ACC team. They defend very well to be so formative, and they turn a lot of shots back with their height. When ACC tourney time rolls around, and the games slow-down, that won’t be the worst recipe for success. I make Maryland out to be a a very very low NC2A seed, or at least an NIT worthy team.
With so much of the Cassell attention sure to be focused on the loquacious one, Mr.
Vasquez (that’s him on the right, engaging in yet another vis-a-vis for his country vs. the Canadian guy on the left in the pre-Olympic qualifier for Venezuela); I hope our younsters are not baited into a bunch of mono-a-mono games of 1:1 isolation with him, as Maryland has 2 other very nice scorers, and one nice bench sub’. The Terps invented Under Armor, and that does seem to jive with Mr. Vasquez mentality, as he can surely do a truculent cameo for a UA commercial. With Hayes out, our chances to win inside the Cassell have gone up, but I’ve been concerned that this O&M crew would drop a few conference nail-biters, and be ever so close but yet so far. Sorry folks, this one may hurt. Virginia Tech 69 Maryland 71. b’street
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