That was unusual. Trimble was not good. Sulaimon was not good. Carter, Stone, and Layman played well. Nickens can't hit a shot; ice cold for weeks now. I think Brantley must have taken a dump on Turgeon's car or something; he looked great against Princeton and has barely seen the floor since.
Conference road games are tough, I guess.
Probably best I missed that game, the way it sounds.
Sounds a lot like the Carolina game. I didn't see the game but apparently Michigan was really hot from 3, and Melo got in foul trouble. To lose by 3 to a hot shooting, good team, on their floor, with your best player having a really bad night is not something I'm worried about. Now, if this were the tourney, we'd be out, but hopefully the team continues to gell and will learn from games like this.
Not to pick nits - but Michigan was 14 for 29 from 3. For the season - as a team - they are shooting 43% from 3. So it was a good game but not a scorching hot game. They've 6 guys who shoot over 40% and two who shoot over 50%.
I'm not trying to take anything away from Michigan, they deserved the win. I didn't see the game but I heard on the radio that they started off really hot and put the Terps in a hole early. Even if they come back down to earth some later in the game, the early hole makes a huge difference. And Maryland was only 6-24 from 3, way less than their season average.
As a Terp fan, I don't want to see a loss; however, given all the factors I mentioned and losing by only 3 tells me this team can be competitive even without their A or B game.
Make no mistake, the Terps should have been able to win this game. They came back from a 13 point deficit to tie it, with plenty of time left, and had multiple opportunities to take the lead.
Each time, they took an ill-advised three instead of feeding the post, something that had been working well.
The most disturbing things, to me, are/were:
1. Nickens can't seem to hit a shot. He's now 4 of 26 on threes since Christmas.
2. None of the guards were able to penetrate the lane against Michigan.
3. Maryland's rebounding is poor, especially considering the height advantage they typically have.
4. The rotation has basically been shortened to 7 players at this point. It's clear that Turgeon doesn't trust Brantley or Cekovsky to play important minutes.
On the bright side, Layman played his best game all year last night.