Terp Talk – Maryland Sports

I was walking down Canal St looking for a place to eat when I remembered to check the Terps score on my Iphone. 59-32? At that point we wereshooting 70% or so. Hopefully this could be the start of a turnaround. Turgeon’s post game remarks:

“That was fun; we needed that and needed a win. I am proud of our guys. We talked about playing with energy, playing hard, and having fun. We put a lot more effort into us than we did Wake Forest today and it helped. “

On the play of the big men:

“[Wake Forest] didn’t double and we had a size advantage. They started small so we went right to James [Padgett] first play and he finished–that got him going. There was an elbow thrown early and that got Alex [Len] going. There was some jawing going on and that got him going. Charles [Mitchell] missed some layups that he usually makes, and I thought Shaq [Cleare] was good. Their screening was pretty good their ball screen defense was also pretty good, and their defending around the rim was tremendous. I told the radio that we played smarter defensively than we have in a long time.

“We put less effort into this scout [team] than we have in a while because we were mentally tired. We knew who their drivers were, knew their shooters and non-shooters, and the guys did a great job until we lost a little bit of focus the last seven or eight minutes. It’s a sign of maturity; we are growing up. We all know the one thing we didn’t do well was take care of the ball. Its mind boggling, it’s frustrating. As a coaching staff we said when we turned the ball over we were going to stand up and cheer and yell next play–move on and get a stop. You take away turnovers and it could have been really fun today.”

On the starting lineup:

“[Wake Forest] started a small lineup against Duke and I had a feeling they were going to do it again. James [Padgett] played really well at Florida State. James is a senior; I have a lot of confidence in James on the defensive end. He scored early, we went right to him. When he made the shot he gave up a three in transition on the other end. I thought, oh my god [Travis] McKie is going to get hot in this building again. James was tremendous in the whole. His defense, his team defense was great. He is a smart player. It takes a lot of pressure off of Alex, off of Shaq and Charles when he plays that way so it was a welcome sight.

“Jake [Layman] is a guy who is really starting to come on. I have a lot of confidence in him, his defense has gotten better. You can see how well he shoots it–coming off of that screen in the second half that was really pretty. Where we go at point guard I don’t know. I have a lot of confidence in Nick [Faust]. Seth Allen played more point today than he has in a really long time, he did a nice job with it. I thought Pe’Shon [Howard] at the point was tremendous defensively today, especially in the first half he did a great job on [C.J.] Harris.”

So for everyone looking for a safe place to jump ship—hold on. Okay I will give you that we must follow it up on the road at Blacksburg on Thursday but maybe the tightness is gone. The 19 turnovers still bother me but the nets are beginning to be dented. As I have said Layman is turning things on. Factor in his youth then analyze his game. I predicted we would be 6-5 and I am sticking to it. Thursday night at 9PM at Virginia Tech.