Maryland 88, Clemson 79
I'm going to disagree a little with ClemBen here. I think we can say with some certainty now that Maryland is a good team. Not final-four caliber, but the sweet sixteen isn't a stretch this year for Gary Williams & Co. I think as a Clemson fan the game went about as well as you could hope for. We were aggressive in the beginning, particularly on offense. Gary Williams came out pressing us, probably hoping to slow our offense down like in the first meeting. I was impressed, Clemson showed a real ability to attack Maryland's pressure, getting down the court and finding open shots. With Maryland unable to get set in their defense, they were even worse than normal defending the offensive glass, leading to quite a few easy points. When Gary Williams dialed down the pressure and started setting his team back in the halfcourt, we stopped getting the open three-point looks. With Jerai Grant only playing 9 minutes, Trevor Booker looked really tired in the second half and wasn't able to fight for position on the blocks. Those two factors really combined to stunt the offense in the second half, and it slowly slipped away from Clemson. I really think Jerai Grant's fifth foul with about 11:00 minutes left was the death knell. Without an extra body to fight for the offensive rebounds and spell T. Booker, we were in deep trouble even if we were still clinging to a lead at the time.
On the other side of the ball, Maryland's offense really just overwhelmed us. If they hadn't missed so many point-blank shots in the first half they might have hung a hundred on us. Thinking back to the second half, it's hard to remember us getting any stops at all. I can remember Maryland throwing the ball away a couple of times, but we could not stop the sets Gary Williams was throwing at us. They had a great designed play where Vasquez gave the ball up at the three point line to Tucker who was running a curling around to shed his defender, and knowing that Smith would turn his back and follow Vasquez under the hoop, Tucker ran right behind Smith using him as shield to get three feet from the hoop. That's what you get from watching the tapes.
My only critique of Clemson's play is to wonder why we didn't abandon the press earlier in the first half--Maryland was really shredding the pressure from the opening tip. I can appreciate Purnell's desire to be aggressive and create some opportunities in a game we didn't have much of a chance to win, but I would have preferred to see Clemson concentrate on the half court after we built that big lead. That would have at least forced Maryland to fight for some of its points instead of allowing them to pretty effortlessly whittle down the lead in the waning minutes of the first half.
Now the pressure shifts back on us to win two of the last three. I wouldn't take this game as an indication of how we will perform the rest of the way; as I discussed in the preview Maryland really poses some matchup difficulties for us. They defend the shot well and don't turn the ball over, two traits that have bothered us a lot this season. We still have the ability to get into the NCAA tournament. Let's see if the team can bounce back in Tallahassee.
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