from Matt Bracken in the Sun
“It feels great to be a part of the Maryland Terps,” said Dodd, who has been to two Terps games at Comcast Center, including Tuesday night’s win over Miami. “I knew they were looking at me, but I was just waiting to see how things played out. When they offered me, it was pretty exciting and I verbally committed.”
Dodd’s path from Eastern Shore high school hoops to the ACC – improbable as it may seem – was years in the making, according to Becraft. Every year, Dodd has “taken steps forward” for the Lions. The most dramatic leap came between junior and senior year, when Dodd added “20-to-25 pounds of muscle” to his previously lanky frame. The future Terp worked with a personal trainer during the offseason and improved his conditioning and strength dramatically. An improved physique combined with his intrinsic skills has led to Dodd becoming a dominant high school player.
“He runs the floor extremely well,” Becraft said. “He’s got tremendous timing as far as altering and blocking shots. He rebounds well and has learned how to play high, which is a big thing, You see a lot of young big guys that negate their height by playing low, but he’s learned to play high. He needs to work on his go-to moves. Most of his shots are throwing the ball down through the bucket. That’s not a very difficult shot, when you’re dunking all the time.
Ryan
This concerns me greatly.
The Terps, from about 1992 until 2005 were a national powerhouse. They were great in the 70’s up through the Len Bias tragedy as well.
From about 1997 through 2004, we were consistently in the top 25, and NEVER missed an NCAA tourney.
Gary got lax with recruiting. I’ve met Gary, and heard him speak many time. He is arrogant as all get. That probably led to his success, but it killed him recruiting too. He wasn’t gonna do what needs doing.
So, the last 7 seasons, MD hasn’t been ANYWHERE near where MD was. Regardless of how much Gary will try to throw that ACC regular season tie a few years back. The team has not been a National Contender.
Anyway, as thin as this current team is, they are still decent recruits as far as their HS rankings were concerned. Mosely, is a huge bust. Terrible shooter, and a big part of why MD has been down these last 3 of 4 years. Parker was the 43rd ranked kid in his class and hasn’t done much through 2 years either. Faust has been a bad shooter. He plays OK at times, but hasn’t had the best year IMO.
These are Gary’s players. He never got a complete recruiting class.
My concern with Dodd is, Turgeon has a really good recruiting class next year. However, he needed another big man to put us back in contention. He couldn’t get one. So, this Dodd looks like a REAL reach to me. A possible waste of a scholarship.
Joe Smith came out of nowhere, but in a time when the recruiting services were thin. Now a days, is it really possible that a quality players was missed by all the services to be unranked? Is this guy really ACC caliber?
If Turgeon missed on all of those other PF’s, C’s, and SF’s, then why not pocket the ship, and save it for 2013?
Hopefully, some of Gary’s players, guys that just are not ACC caliber, or winning ACC caliber might be a better way to say it, should not be the targets of the new MD Hoops. Howard, Pankey, Weiss, Mosely, etc. These are Towson, low major skilled players that do not belong on a MD team.
I was hoping we were getting away from that.
As far as football. Well, Brown can’t throw. If Edsall can’t see that, than we are all in trouble, if we want to see MD win.
You can get all the 5 star skill players that there are, but if you can’t throw the ball 20 yards in the air, and you just have a gimmicky scheme, then you just aren’t gonna win.
The key was fixing the defense, and I don’t see how they did that. Edsall was a huge mistake, and Loxley is probably just 1 year away from taking over.
· 11/12/2019