When the Terps were up 54-38, didn’t you just know Clemson would make a run. Jennings and Young seemed to make 3 after 3. Mosley contributed 16 including 3 threes. Listen, everyone stay off PeShon’s back. Yes he had a rough game 1-5—-2 points–3 turn overs but we still found a way to win.

Coach Turgeon post game:

“That’s a great win for us. Now we don’t have to listen to everyone say `they’re going for their first road win.’ We got that behind us. I thought we were as good as we have been defensively, executing, and distributing the ball. We got the big lead and then at the 7:33 timeout, I told our guys we had been great for 33 minutes, but we have to play 40. Clemson hit the three coming out that sort of got them going, then we let our offense dictate our defense down the stretch and, in typical fashion, we missed a lot of free throws to make it interesting for everybody. In the end, I thought Terrell Stoglin was tremendous and I thought Sean Mosley gave us a lot of quality minutes. We have to rebound a little better, but we followed the game plan. We had certain guys on their team that we wanted to beat us, and our guys followed that plan pretty well for the most part.”

Felt like it could have been the Twilight Zone–with Carolina displaying old time NBA names like– Harrison “Bad News ” Barnes—Kendall “Donyelle” Marshall. James Michael “Bob” McAdoo—PJ “Happy” Hairston—-Tyler “Gary” Zeller

Turgeon post game: ”We played well again. [We] played with great hustle and great effort. We did a lot of things really well. [We] had a stretch in the second half where we couldn’t get into anything. Pe’Shon [Howard] was on the bench. [We] just didn’t look like we could get into anything, and when [Tyler] Zeller was out I thought we could’ve made a run. And then we made some mistakes defensively and couldn’t rebound. I know I’m going to watch the tape and probably be disappointed in our effort on the glass [which] is something I’m on these guys about. It was the number one key of the game for us and second was transition. We did a great job in transition, but we didn’t do a great job boxing out and rebounding and a lot of it is just [North Carolina's] length and size. There’s a reason they were preseason number one in the country. They have really good players and I thought their best players stepped up. [John] Henson, [Harrison] Barnes and Zeller stepped up when the game was on the line and made all the plays.”

Stoglin 20 points again–forcing 3s today only 1-9

Alex Len continued his improved play with a dozen points, 9 rebounds and  4 blocks

Ashton and Padgett combined for 11 points and6 rebounds–not enough

As he often has done at home this year, Sean Mosley took over some of the offense down the wire finishing with 11 points.

Coach Turgeon looked extremely frustrated post game. He was incensed at Carlina rubbing the victory in our faces with Henson’s totally unnecessary dunk against a Terrapin team that had shut down for the last few seconds. 

The students really got behind sending out strong signals to Stefon Diggs,THE uncommitted recruit out of Good Counsel. Chants of WE Want Diggs echoed throughout the arena all night.

So the Terps fall to 13-9 and 3-5 in the conference–Next Game Tuesday night at Littlejohn Coliseum in Clemson.

“Stoglin, he plays for both teams,” Greenberg said after Stoglin scored 28 points on 9 of 21 shooting. “The guy made tough, tough shots, but he also [took] some shots that gave us a chance to get back in the game. But when he’s making those tough shots, especially the guarded ones, you hope that’s your chance to win the game.”

Coach Turgeon Post Game:“I thought we were great defensively. The first 20 minutes we really prepared well. I think in the last eight days we’ve gotten so much better as a team. A lot of it is preparation; I think we really guarded their sets well. In the second half they spread us and we weren’t quite as good, but we were still pretty good in that stretch. I thought our execution was better than it has been. Quite frankly, I think up until the 38-minute mark we were as good as we’ve been this year. It felt very comfortable when we had double-digit leads and the guys were playing well, but true to course the way we are, we had to make it interesting. Giving up layup after layup and we missed free throws, but give credit to them because they had a lot of fight in them. We had one bad turnover against the press and besides that I think we handled it pretty well. I’m proud of our group, it was a great win for us. Any win is a good win. We are 3-3 in the league and we’re heading in the right direction which I’m happy about. It shows in the way we play.” 

Senior Captain Sean Mosley is the glue of this team. When all was failing including trouble at the free throw line, Sean nailed 5 straight free throws to more or less secure the lead. He wound up with 15 points and  remember he has only 4 games left in Comcast.

The ACC’s leading scorer Terrell Stoglin finished with 28 including 21 in the 2nd half. You can criticize his 0 assists and 5 turnovers all you want but without him there would several less W’s.

Another great crowd lifted the Terps when the lead was collapsing. Let’s a Saturday afternoon ACC game–I bet that would work for attendance.

Kevin Plank and John Feinstein were in the house today.

It seemed like Coach Turgeon wanted to get Pankey and Padgett into the play immediately today as the first 4 plays were feeds down deep.

The effort of this team is unmatched across the board. If they can bring these “habits” on the road with them then watch out!!!

It appears as each game passes Nick Faust’s strong moments improve. He was a force in the first half. hen things are going right for Nick his aggressiveness seems both powerful and under control. He is one of the guys improving mightily with each game.

So we begin to enter crunch time for the Terps–10 games left in the regular season–4 at home –6 on the road. Miami on Wednesday is a great test for Maryland. After the max effort exerted the past 2 games, a repeat could produce victory.

Check out Sean Mosley’s account of the game.

On the team’s improvement:
“Each and every game I think we are starting to mature, slowly but surely. If things weren’t going our way on offense early in the season it affected our defense. But now when we aren’t scoring the basketball we can still get stops. We held them to 19 points in the first half and that was a great job by us. When we aren’t scoring the basketball we try to frustrate the other team, get stops, get to the free-throw line and get things going again.”

On the team’s defense:
“We didn’t want them to get a three-point play, but at the end of the day we didn’t want them to get easy layups at the basket like they were getting. During the game sometimes you get caught up in not wanting to foul and stop the clock. At the end of the game though we had guys go up to the free-throw line and make big free throws for us, that is what is most important. That’s why I think we are starting to mature overall. It is definitely a big win for us.” 

This kid will be a Coach someday–count on it!!!

The ceremony to name the court after Gary was brief but filled with wild enthusiasm from the crowd. Gary was sincerely touched holding back his emotion in the post press conference.It was a special night.

Duke was exremely physical with Terrell. I thought Tyler Thornton got away with a lot of pushing and holding on. Terrell still finished with 7-14 shooting but had an off day from the charity stripe going 2-7.

In the first half PeShon really exerted himself playing his most ferocious ball the entire year. He finished with 10 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists.Pankey and Padsgett were little match for the Duke bigs though the effort delivered was excellent.

It was an off day for Sean finishing with only 6 points and 5 rebounds. We just needed for someone to drain a few buckets.

I asked Coach Turgeon whether or not the real problem of the team was the offense. “I think it is more of who we are. We are a young team, we are inexperienced, we make mental errors, and we don’t make free throws. You may ask if it is an offensive problem or defensive problem, I think it is an everything problem. I think we are getting closer in everything we do. But, I do think offensively we are still trying to figure it out.”

It seems to me the Terrapins need to get these games in the 50s –How is this accomplished? Give up the fast breaks unless there is a snowbird bucket involved. Try to shorten the game by using as much of the 35 seconds of the shot clock. Keep the defense fresh by spreading the timeouts rather then storing them. In this 3 game losing streak the Terps have scored 60, 61, and 62.

Alex Len’s exit may have sealed the Terps doom Saturday morning but apparently his ankle injury was minor as terrapin times.com reports he will play against Duke.

A great contingent of Terrapin fans showed up at the Palestra and were treated to a great comeback rally by the Terps that fell about 5 minutes short

PeShon turned in his best offensive performance of the year finishing with 15 points on 7-12 shooting

Fran Dunphy, coach of Temple was gushing with his praise for Terrell Stoglin who tallied 20 points to maintain his clear scoring lead in the ACC

The Terps return home this week for 2 game against Duke and Virginia Tech. Duke lost to the the team I believe might just be the best in the ACC and that Florida State. Wedneday night the Comcast floor will be named after Gary Williams at 8:30 before the Duke game.

The Terps must sustain their effort on the rod for 40 minutes. Padgettt who leads the ACC in offensive rebounds was 5-6 from the field with 4 rebounds but Pankey  had but 3 rebounds in 14 minutes. Look for Mychal Parker’s minutes to increase as he improves with each game.

Padgett, Pankey and Len were pummeled by the FSU bigs tonight. Unfortunately it is becoming a pattern on the road. Coach Turgeon stated post game that if we didn’t guard better on the road, we might not win a road game.

Stoglin finished with 27 points on 8-17 shooting. With a hobbled Mosley, Terrell must put up big points, so you can never complain when he fires up those howitzers. PeShon must step up his scoring whether or not Mosley is out. His drive to the bucket is very good. I thought Nick played a little better tonight but most of his points were when the game was out of hand.
Temple Saturday morning at 11AM. at the Palestra.