So here is the bad news, Maryland lost its 4th non conference game albeit to a pretty good GW team
Maryland got off to another weak start trailing 41-29 at halftime.
Smotrycz missed a few key shots down the wire and finished with 2-9 from the field
The Terps finished with 18 turnovers and only 6 assists
Jake was 1-4 from the 3 point line–as a team Maryland was 5-19
Once again a slow start did the Terps in
And the good news
Though Turgeon refused to confirm we will see much more full court pressing, I believe that this is not the case. Last year the team turned on when it instituted a full court press for parts of the Game. Today the pressure ignited the entire team. Perhaps what this type needs is a chaotic, brand of basketball. It seems like Maryland does its best when the pressure is applied. I saw a lot more life in this team during the pressing period of time.
Post game Turgeon spoke of the energy Jonathan Graham brought with him tonight: “Jonathan Graham gave us great minutes, played as hard as he could, and most importantly raised the intensity level of the squad.” I also though Nick Faust might have given us his best minutes of the year in the final 10 minutes.
Maryland Head Coach Mark Turgeon
Opening Statement:
“It was a great college basketball game. GW is a really good basketball team. Their big guys just gave us fits all day and really played well. Of course [Maurice] Creek is a great player and now he’s healthy and playing like it. He made the shot of the game. They made free throws when they had to make them. I was really proud of my team. We tried hard. We don’t have a lot of things going our way right now. Balls are going in-and-out. Guys are making tough shots against us. We never quit and had a chance to win it. When we had the ball with the score tied I thought we got fouled. It ended up being a foul on us. That was a big play in the game. There’s a lot of basketball left and hopefully we can get better.
On coming back from down 14 points without Dez Wells:
“It was nice to do it without Dez. I gained a lot of confidence. I thought Jonathan Graham gave us great minutes. He played hard and we raised our intensity up a level because of him. Dez was in and out of foul trouble the whole second half and he was starting to get it going. It was good to see. We’re just missing some shots that we need to make. In the first half I thought we took a lot of bad shots. When we made the game chaotic, we were pretty good. We got outrebounded and that was one of our emphases. But to do that without Dez was a good sign.”
On Roddy Peters’ performance:
“I thought he just played. He made some nice plays. They went zone, so we had one less shooter out on the floor. They didn’t guard Roddy, so he kept trying to make plays. He did some nice things. Defensively, he had the big steal there at halfcourt and had the steal on the press. I thought our whole team was more aggressive. I’ve got to get our guys playing at the start of the game better without pressing. We can’t rely on that, but I was proud of Roddy.”
No one is questioning the heart and effort of this team. But the wins must come in the conference.c
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