Oh, I Love College Basketball

Yes, the Terps lost to the Wisconsin Badgers by 5 points tonight, but it doesn't matter. Sure it matters that we lost to an out-of-conference opponent, but we played like garbage. This is why I love college basketball. No, I don't like seeing my team lose, but my point is that a team like the Terps can blow out a talented Memphis team, and then look like they forgot how to play against a beatable Wisconsin team....ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN! This is why college basketball is my favorite sport. There are so many little details of the game that can kill or elevate a team, and tonight they killed us.

At first, I was livid about how much of a ballhog Nik Caner-Medley was tonight, but it's not his fault we lost the game. I mean, yes he should've passed it off to anyone rather than take a shot with two guys on him, but he did make a clutch 3 near the end. Tonight, the problem was, well, everything. We didn't have it. That's all there is to it. We couldn't get anything going. Our guards were playing passively, our big men were getting killed on the boards, we look liked we did last year at the charity stripe, and our shots were just not falling, plus Alando Tucker was on FIRE in the first half. I was amazed to see Ekene Ibekwe with so many points near the end of the game, because he just seemed to not do anything, but I applaud him, because he was being aggressive and played smarter in the second half. Travis Garrison just plain pulled a Taj Holden. He started off on fire, and then disappeared. This is what scares me, having a player with an inside body not playing aggressively inside. It could have been due to the two "injuries" he encountered during the game, but when you're playing a team like Wisconsin where they can play three 6'9"+ guys at time, you need an inside presence, something we lack overall. Use your body and box the guy out! Take a cue from Lonnie Baxter and Obina Ekezie, and get your ass in the other guy's body and push him around! I really wish Will Bowers and Hassan Fofana would get some coordination and some knowledge of the game, because we need them badly.

Now let's actually look at how we played as a team.

It seemed that our team forgot the fundamentals of basketball. I rarely saw movement without the ball, we didn't seem to be too aggressive on the boards, and we weren't passing the ball enough. What made that 2001-2002 Championship team so great was that there was ball movement, especially with the inside-outside game. This year's team lacks this asset, or at least didn't play that way tonight. Our guards seemed to be tentative on the perimeter, with Mike Jones being the only one attempting any outside shots consistently (though he didn't hit one). All they would do was drive the lane and get trapped by 3 guys and either put up an ugly shot or pass to another guy inside. There was no penetration and kick out. There was no get it to the post and swing it to the outside. I can't tell if that's due to our team or due to the Wisconsin defense that seemed to just stop us dead in our tracks. Two things need to happen, and they need to happen concurrently: 1. we need a guy to post up every time and 2. we need our guards or SFs to take an outside shot when they have it. Nik Caner-Medley's biggest offensive problem is that he doesn't take the 3 often, instead doing his overdone leg-kick fake, drive to the opposite side of the basket, and shoot a fadeaway move. When he gets that pass in the corner, he needs to take it. Same goes for every other guard on our team. That's why Juan Dixon and Drew Nicholas were deadly, they took that shot. But this requires a half-court offense, which we showed we don't have, and it will kill us later on in the year. We've been lucky to play teams that don't have solid big men until tonight, but now we see that when we can't run and gun we're in deep shit. Teams that rely on the fast break can be easily defeated by a team that plays good, not even great, defense. Wisconsin is a solid team, but we should've beaten them, we just couldn't capitalize on offense.

And now I see the reason why Jamar Smith was an asset to our team last year. We revolved our half-court offense around him and had a solid player (when he actually showed up) on the blocks. Garrison and Ibekwe need to be those pillars down low, enabling John Gilchrist and Chris McCray to light it up outside and penetrate inside.

So tonight's game showed us that while we may have the talent, we don't completely have the skill to be a great team. It seemed everyone went cold tonight, but that's when people have to step up and carry the load, or stay smart and be a team player. You need to come out every night and just play fundamentally, which is why (I hate to say this) teams like Duke and Kansas are always consistently on top...they emphasize basketball basics. Gary Williams is a great coach, there's no doubt about it, but it's up to the players to apply what he teaches to each game.

So that's one loss so far this season. It was a heart-breaker, but it's over. We still have 3 months of basketball to play before Tourney time, and that's a lot of basketball. The team is still young, and still has a lot of growing to do, so don't get down on them; we're gonna win some (hopefully a lot) and lose some. We're in the toughest basketball conference in the country and it's gonna be a bumpy road ahead, so just hold on for the ride. This team knows how to win, it just needs to know how to do it consistently. We have a couple of games this weekend, and hopefully we can take this loss and fuel our fire so we can win the BB&T.

GO Terps!