Sorry for no GT recap. Things got crazy this weekend with the snow, Super Bowl, men's game against UNC, and everything else.
Tonight's game starts in like 10 minutes on wmucsports.com as well as CSN on the TV. I'll keep this simple:
If Maryland doesn't win tonight, kiss the NCAA tournament goodbye.
...What the hell. I'm in a good mood. Despite three straight heartbreaking losses at home that followed the same or similar scripts (opponent gets up big, Terps battle back then blow it at the end in stomach punching fashion), I'll say that the Terps save their season tonight.
PREDICTION - Maryland 76, Virginia 67
Monday, February 8, 2010
Friday, February 5, 2010
GAMEDAY - # 21/RV Georgia Tech (18-5, 4-3) @ Maryland (16-6, 3-4)
Welcome.
Welcome to February, welcome to the stretch run, welcome to the life of a team on the proverbial NCAA tournament bubble, and, most importantly, welcome back to this blog.
It's been a long couple of months without it. A lot of things happened during the time I was away that led me to allow this thing to slip through the cracks but now it's back, I'm back, and it's time to rev up and go full speed through the rest of the season, however long that may be.
There's a lot to talk about. Obviously, after I've been gone for so long, a ton of stuff has gone down. The epic home winning streak is over; in fact, the Terps are actually on a two game losing streak at the Comcast Center that needs to be broken immediately if they're going to harbor serious hopes of playing basketball deep in to March. There have been a few embarrassing road performances against sub-par teams. There was a really nice win on national TV at ranked Virginia. There have been a couple of heartbreaking, heart-stopping losses at home recently to put the Terps in to some NCAA tournament trouble. But we'll get to all of that in the future. For now, there's a game in about 20 minutes-pushed up because of the 2 feet of snow we're supposed to get this weekend-so let's focus on that.
There are a couple of storylines coming in to this game against the Yellow Jackets. The first one is that for the first time since February 20-24, 2003, the Terps have lost consecutive home games. That's...that's a long time ago. That's three years before the national championship. And not only have they lost two straight games at Comcast, they were both in heart-breaking fashion. First came the 48-game-win-streak buster; the 15 point comeback against upstart Miami that ended with super-freshman Riquna Williams hitting the game winning 3 pointer with 2.4 seconds to go for the Canes as they prevailed 80-77. Then, three days later, the Terps were down 11 late in the second half against # 7/# 6 Duke, but came back and then fell just short again thanks to a go-ahead bucket from Bridgette Mitchell with 1:29 to go to help the hated Blue Devils hold off the Terps 58-57.
The Terps have bounced back, sort of, since those two soul-crushing defeats. They went to Blacksburg, VA and rolled 60-44 over a Virginia Tech team that stunned # 10/11 North Carolina there a few weeks prior. Then they made easy work of non-conference patsy Longwood down in Farmville, VA 85-40. Kim Rodgers had 5 first half three pointers in that one to help spur the Terps from the start.
But this Georgia Tech team is a different animal. Unlike Maryland's last two opponents, (and like the Terps themselves) the Yellow Jackets have NCAA tournament aspirations. They're 17-5 but there aren't very many, if any, impressive wins on the ledger. They're 4-3 in ACC play; 4-0 at home, 0-3 on the road. They lost by 11 at UNC, by 26 at Boston College (who has been a pretty big disappointment this season...until last night when they stunned Duke), and by a basket at Virginia. They really, really need a road scalp and another good victory against an NCAA-tournament caliber team. Beating the Terps in College Park would fill both those needs. It would probably be their best win of the season, surpassing home victories over Miami and Wake Forest.
As for the Terps themselves, they're just 3-4 in ACC play. I'll take a deeper look at their NCAA tournament chances after this game but for now let's just say that they really need a victory here. They've already lost serve at home twice in ACC play and that's just something you can't do if you're a bubble team: lose at home in conference play. If they lose today, they fall to 3-5 in the conference and Monday's home game against Virginia becomes all-but-must-win with 3 of their final 5 on the road.
So let's break it down. Georgia Tech is led by Brigitte Ardossi, a 6'2 senior forward who leads the team in points (14.9 per game) and rebounds (7.3.) She shoots over 50% from the floor so it will be a tough job for the Terps to force her in to bad shots and out of her offensive game. But there's really no one key player for the Terps to focus on. Five players average 7.7 points or more per game. No one in their regular 8-man rotation averages more than 30 minutes per game. Alex Montgomery, their second-leading scorer and only legitimate 3 point threat (she has 48 on the year and shoots 36% from deep; no one else comes close to either of those), has only started 3 games this season. It's going to take a team effort from the Terps to shut down the Jackets and get the W today.
As for Maryland itself, they seem to have finally found their identity and their leader. Naturally, it's their only senior. Lori Bjork has absolutely taken over this team ever since that crossroads Virginia game back on January 11. The Terps were coming off a 73-45 wipeout at ACC dreg N.C. State in their conference opener. It seemed like an 0-2 start in conference play was inevitable given their road form up to that point...but Bjork had other ideas. She scored a game-high 20 on 6 threes to lead the Terps to a 61-60 upset of the-then-#23/19 Cavaliers. Since that game, she's scored double figures in every game (10 straight overall) and leads the team, by far, with 16.1 points per game in ACC play. She's also the leading three point shooter in the conference. She has become the key to their offense: when she's on, the Terps are on. When she's cold, well, they go cold too. There have been significant scoring droughts in the recent losses to Duke and Miami which have allowed those teams to build up the double-digit leads that the Terps have come back from. It would be a good idea to prevent Georgia Tech from getting a similar lead thanks to a similar scoring dearth today.
There are two other keys as far as I'm concerned: take care of the basketball and take advantage of the glaring mismatch of long range shooting. The first one is obvious and has been a key to Maryland basketball for years. Turnovers are going to happen but there can't be too many of them and they can't come at critical times. And I've already touched on the vast difference between the Terps and Jackets in terms of 3 point shooting. Not only does Bjork lead the ACC in 3 point shooting, the Terps also have Kim Rodgers who can light it up from deep (like she did against Longwood in the first half) and Diandra Tchatchouang who can shoot it a little bit. Georgia Tech has Montgomery and...that's it.
In the end though, it doesn't matter how they do it, it just matters that it gets done. Maryland needs to win this game. Period. I really don't know if they will but the thinking here is that Bjork makes the difference in the end with a few clutch 3's late. All I know is this: if it's half as good as the last time the Jackets came to College Park; a 99-95 double overtime thriller won by the Terps (that made Dave Vatz lose his mind on play-by-play for us), we're in for a treat. Recap and more to come afterwards.
PREDICTION - Maryland 74, Georgia Tech 68
Welcome to February, welcome to the stretch run, welcome to the life of a team on the proverbial NCAA tournament bubble, and, most importantly, welcome back to this blog.
It's been a long couple of months without it. A lot of things happened during the time I was away that led me to allow this thing to slip through the cracks but now it's back, I'm back, and it's time to rev up and go full speed through the rest of the season, however long that may be.
There's a lot to talk about. Obviously, after I've been gone for so long, a ton of stuff has gone down. The epic home winning streak is over; in fact, the Terps are actually on a two game losing streak at the Comcast Center that needs to be broken immediately if they're going to harbor serious hopes of playing basketball deep in to March. There have been a few embarrassing road performances against sub-par teams. There was a really nice win on national TV at ranked Virginia. There have been a couple of heartbreaking, heart-stopping losses at home recently to put the Terps in to some NCAA tournament trouble. But we'll get to all of that in the future. For now, there's a game in about 20 minutes-pushed up because of the 2 feet of snow we're supposed to get this weekend-so let's focus on that.
There are a couple of storylines coming in to this game against the Yellow Jackets. The first one is that for the first time since February 20-24, 2003, the Terps have lost consecutive home games. That's...that's a long time ago. That's three years before the national championship. And not only have they lost two straight games at Comcast, they were both in heart-breaking fashion. First came the 48-game-win-streak buster; the 15 point comeback against upstart Miami that ended with super-freshman Riquna Williams hitting the game winning 3 pointer with 2.4 seconds to go for the Canes as they prevailed 80-77. Then, three days later, the Terps were down 11 late in the second half against # 7/# 6 Duke, but came back and then fell just short again thanks to a go-ahead bucket from Bridgette Mitchell with 1:29 to go to help the hated Blue Devils hold off the Terps 58-57.
The Terps have bounced back, sort of, since those two soul-crushing defeats. They went to Blacksburg, VA and rolled 60-44 over a Virginia Tech team that stunned # 10/11 North Carolina there a few weeks prior. Then they made easy work of non-conference patsy Longwood down in Farmville, VA 85-40. Kim Rodgers had 5 first half three pointers in that one to help spur the Terps from the start.
But this Georgia Tech team is a different animal. Unlike Maryland's last two opponents, (and like the Terps themselves) the Yellow Jackets have NCAA tournament aspirations. They're 17-5 but there aren't very many, if any, impressive wins on the ledger. They're 4-3 in ACC play; 4-0 at home, 0-3 on the road. They lost by 11 at UNC, by 26 at Boston College (who has been a pretty big disappointment this season...until last night when they stunned Duke), and by a basket at Virginia. They really, really need a road scalp and another good victory against an NCAA-tournament caliber team. Beating the Terps in College Park would fill both those needs. It would probably be their best win of the season, surpassing home victories over Miami and Wake Forest.
As for the Terps themselves, they're just 3-4 in ACC play. I'll take a deeper look at their NCAA tournament chances after this game but for now let's just say that they really need a victory here. They've already lost serve at home twice in ACC play and that's just something you can't do if you're a bubble team: lose at home in conference play. If they lose today, they fall to 3-5 in the conference and Monday's home game against Virginia becomes all-but-must-win with 3 of their final 5 on the road.
So let's break it down. Georgia Tech is led by Brigitte Ardossi, a 6'2 senior forward who leads the team in points (14.9 per game) and rebounds (7.3.) She shoots over 50% from the floor so it will be a tough job for the Terps to force her in to bad shots and out of her offensive game. But there's really no one key player for the Terps to focus on. Five players average 7.7 points or more per game. No one in their regular 8-man rotation averages more than 30 minutes per game. Alex Montgomery, their second-leading scorer and only legitimate 3 point threat (she has 48 on the year and shoots 36% from deep; no one else comes close to either of those), has only started 3 games this season. It's going to take a team effort from the Terps to shut down the Jackets and get the W today.
As for Maryland itself, they seem to have finally found their identity and their leader. Naturally, it's their only senior. Lori Bjork has absolutely taken over this team ever since that crossroads Virginia game back on January 11. The Terps were coming off a 73-45 wipeout at ACC dreg N.C. State in their conference opener. It seemed like an 0-2 start in conference play was inevitable given their road form up to that point...but Bjork had other ideas. She scored a game-high 20 on 6 threes to lead the Terps to a 61-60 upset of the-then-#23/19 Cavaliers. Since that game, she's scored double figures in every game (10 straight overall) and leads the team, by far, with 16.1 points per game in ACC play. She's also the leading three point shooter in the conference. She has become the key to their offense: when she's on, the Terps are on. When she's cold, well, they go cold too. There have been significant scoring droughts in the recent losses to Duke and Miami which have allowed those teams to build up the double-digit leads that the Terps have come back from. It would be a good idea to prevent Georgia Tech from getting a similar lead thanks to a similar scoring dearth today.
There are two other keys as far as I'm concerned: take care of the basketball and take advantage of the glaring mismatch of long range shooting. The first one is obvious and has been a key to Maryland basketball for years. Turnovers are going to happen but there can't be too many of them and they can't come at critical times. And I've already touched on the vast difference between the Terps and Jackets in terms of 3 point shooting. Not only does Bjork lead the ACC in 3 point shooting, the Terps also have Kim Rodgers who can light it up from deep (like she did against Longwood in the first half) and Diandra Tchatchouang who can shoot it a little bit. Georgia Tech has Montgomery and...that's it.
In the end though, it doesn't matter how they do it, it just matters that it gets done. Maryland needs to win this game. Period. I really don't know if they will but the thinking here is that Bjork makes the difference in the end with a few clutch 3's late. All I know is this: if it's half as good as the last time the Jackets came to College Park; a 99-95 double overtime thriller won by the Terps (that made Dave Vatz lose his mind on play-by-play for us), we're in for a treat. Recap and more to come afterwards.
PREDICTION - Maryland 74, Georgia Tech 68
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