I didn’t think things could get any worse than the performance the Terps offered at Little John against Clemson two weeks ago. Obviously, I was wrong. Despite having two senior guards with a wealth of ACC experience, the Terps were awful yet again at Cameron Indoor on Saturday afternoon.
Not to make excuses, but it was Coach K’s 63rd birthday and 1,000th game at Duke. Do you think any team in the country was going to march into Cameron and get a win under those circumstances? I love it that the Terps were on the schedule trying to overcome those emotional hurdles.
I don’t understand why we couldn’t handle Duke’s defensive pressure. This is a team full of white guys that may be long, but they are not very athletic. Duke extended their defense, overplayed the passing lanes, and ruined any offensive continuity the Terps were trying to establish.
Needless to say, when the Terps come to town somebody on the home team has a career night. Brian Zoubek, an absolute bum, looked like a first team ACC juggernaut with 16 points and 17 rebounds.
If you visit the Library of Congress, you will see that the Terps have the patent on going two full TV timeouts without scoring. I thought the Terps were going to weather the initial onslaught when they took a 6-5 lead. Needless to say, the Blue Devils rattled off a 15-0 run to take a 20-6 lead, and never looked back.
The Terps were abysmal on offense in every facet of the game. Mr. Steady Landon Milbourne was 1-5 from the field with two points. Eric Hayes had four of the teams 14 turnovers, and the ACC’s leading three point shooter came up empty from behind the arc. The Terps came into the contest leading the ACC in assist/turnover ratio, but managed only seven assists for the entire game. The Terps were 23-60 (38%) from the field and shot 2-13 (15%) from behind the three point line. With four minutes left in the second half, Greivis was 5-6 from the field, and the rest of the team was 1-14. Amazing.
The Terps had zero defensive intensity and displayed very little desire to win the game. I loved it when Duke came out after halftime and immediately rattled off six unanswered points to stretch the lead to 20. The only spark occurred when Greivis went on a personal 10-0 run to cut the lead to ten with eight minutes left in the game. Duke answered that run with nine unanswered of their own.
The officiating was not the reason the Terps lost the game, but it was horrible as usual. Zoubek came over the back numerous times, and Scheyer was sent to the line three times on ghost foul calls. Duke dominated the Terps from the inside-out, but the officials didn’t help the cause one bit.
Fortunately, the Terps will not have time to stew over this horrific performance, as they get back at it tonight in the make-up game versus Virginia. The Terps will travel to Raleigh on Wednesay to take on the Wolfpack in a very winnable game. Hopefully the Terps will rattle off two victories and head home this weekend against GA Tech with an 8-3 ACC record.
So much for thinking that the Terps deserve a Top 25 ranking. Also, I think I hate Scheyer less than Hurley, Wojo, Redick, Paulus, and the other Duke whities of the past.
Woodman – still bitter as hell
Filed under: Basketball, College Hoops, Terps Tagged: | Coach K, Duke, greivis vasquez, maryland basketball, Zoubek
