That's the second game this year where the Terps played great defense for a full thirty seconds, in the last minute of the game, down one possession, then failed to secure the rebound on a wild shot. Both times it cost them a chance to win the game. This time, it was pretty much a microcosm of the entire game.
Terps shot fairly well. Played mostly good defense, especially in the press. They had 10 steals and 7 blocked shots! Barely turned the ball over at all. But that's the worst defensive rebounding I've ever seen. Terps secured 13 defensive rebounds compared to Purdue's 19 offensive. Total rebounding was 22 to 41. Downright embarassing for such a big team.
My other thoughts, in no particular order...
Terps shot fairly well. Played mostly good defense, especially in the press. They had 10 steals and 7 blocked shots! Barely turned the ball over at all. But that's the worst defensive rebounding I've ever seen. Terps secured 13 defensive rebounds compared to Purdue's 19 offensive. Total rebounding was 22 to 41. Downright embarassing for such a big team.
My other thoughts, in no particular order...
- Trimble still isn't right, but this is probably who he is for the rest of the season.
- Right now, the Terps best player is Layman (although, oddly, he didn't pick up any defensive rebounds yesterday). They may need to run the offense through Layman more, rather than having him as the 4th or 5th option.
- I mentioned this once before, but it bears repeating. The Terps seem fine on the offensive glass; it's only defensive rebounding that's a problem. That tells me that either they just don't know how to box out (seems unlikely at this level, and I don't remember it being an issue in years past), or... they're overcommitting to blocking shots and leaving themselves out of position once the shot goes up. Of course, that wouldn't explain the three separate times they allowed Purdue to rebound a free throw miss.
- Depth continues to be an issue. Only six players played more than 4 minutes. Dodd played only 3 minutes, and picked up 3 fouls. Granted, the third was a poor call, but no doubt he would have picked up another in short order regardless.
- Earlier in the year, I said Trimble was 90% likely to go pro, Stone 75% likely. That needs to be reversed, more like 95% for Stone and 80% for Trimble. One draft board I saw this week still had Trimble as the 20th pick even after his recent slump. Of course, if it keeps up for the rest of the year, he may slip all the way out of the first round. That's basically the only way I see him coming back; if he's told he'll be a second round pick, which means no guaranteed contract.
- One positive from yesterday is that Nickens was 3 of 5 from deep.
That freaked my computer out. Is that Big10 tourney seeds?
