Maryland Preview

Maryland at Clemson, 1/31, 5:30pm, Littlejohn

Two teams have been pegged in the early going as ACC surprises: Maryland and Virginia. While Virginia is improved from last year (not too hard considering they were the worst team in the league), they have been the beneficiary of a soft early schedule (with a notable victory of Georgia Tech at home). Maryland, on the other hand, looks like its the real deal; I expect them to be battling with Duke for the championship come season's end. It certainly didn't appear to start that way--losses on neutral courts to Wisconsin, Cincinnati, and Villanova don't seem too bad now, particularly given the way Villanova and Wisconsin have played since and given that the games were closer than the scores might indicate. But the home loss to William & Mary on December 30th put the Terps in the back of my mind when it came to sorting out ACC contenders at the beginning of the ACC season.

Since then, however, Maryland has been on a tear; losing only a tough road game to Wake Forest in overtime by two points. There statistical profile is insanely strong right now, as a team they have very little in the way of glaring weakness, playing defense and offense on par with some of the best teams in the country. Its easily the best squad Gary Williams has fielded since 2007. How did this happen?

I point to three reasons: 1) the continued development of Greivis Vasquez, 2) the emergence of Sean Mosely, and 3) the underneath play of freshman Jordan Williams. Vasquez continues to shed the label of overhyped Terrapin by logging his fourth consecutive improved season. He's always been a good passer and decent shooter, but his first two years he constantly turned the ball over. This year he's retained the reduction in turnovers that we noticed last season. At the same time, he's shooting the ball better from behind the arc than ever in his career (~39% vs ~32%) and he's playing better defense. Meanwhile, Sean Mosely has turned into a scorer this season, a guy who drives to the basket without turning the ball over, makes shots, picks up fouls, and has a decent three-point stroke to boot. Jordan Williams has anchored an inside defense that ranks #6 in the country in defending the two-point shot (could be a long night for Trevor Booker).

This is a tough matchup for Clemson. Maryland does not turn the ball over and they hold opposing offenses to a low FG% against--two of the team traits that I think gave Clemson real problems against Duke. If Clemson wants to win, they will have to rely on their halfcourt defense to slow down the Maryland offense, which is probably too much to ask given the points Maryland is going to rack up in transition against the press. That means they'll have to play better on offense. They will need to make some three-point shots (Maryland's FG% against is driven almost entirely by their defense against the two-point shot) and then crash the boards. Maryland's one weakness is giving up too much height on the frontline after Jordan Williams, which can lead to a lot of offensive boards. I expect the game to be close, but Purnell will have probably need to ease off the press early on to make sure we don't dig ourselves into an insurmountable hole. And if the threes aren't falling again...

On top of all of this Clemson has to deal with Gary Williams. This is the coach that broke down our defense for the whole league to see last year, so I'm not eager to see what he's got this time. It will be interesting to see whether he opts to apply some token pressure like GT and BC to eat up Clemson's game clock on offense to reduce the already long amount of time we need to find a halfway-decent look at the basket.

Goes without saying, Tigers need to win some games people aren't expecting them to win. Kenpom has us projected for an 8-8 finish, which I think is a little optimistic--I might lean towards 7-9 right now. Either way, that's good for about an 8th place finish in the league--and there ain't gonna be 8 ACC teams in the tourney. LET'S GO TIGERS!!!