Tobacco Road Report

By Michael

Maryland stays red-hot winning its fifth straight to run its record in ACC play to 8-6 and its overall record to 22-7. Just three short weeks ago, the Terrapins looked to be on the verge of falling out of the NCAA Tournament picture. A rededication to rebounding has paid off in spades. The Terrapins outrebounded Carolina on their way to an exciting 89-87 victory in front of the home fans.

I was interested to see how the tempo would play in this one. Both Maryland and Carolina like it up-tempo, but Carolina thrives on that tempo more than Maryland, so I was wondering what would give. Early on it was the Terrapin defense as Carolina ran out to a 20-9 lead with 11:42 to play in the half.

That's when game started to get chippy as Maryland's bigs started to push back and DJ Strawberry felt enough is enough. Maryland actually started to turn the tempo in their favor, converting three open court opportunities including a spectacular flying reverse by Strawberry.

Maryland wasn't hitting anything from the perimeter, but their second chance efforts slowly started to winnow away the Carolina lead. At the half, Maryland outrebounded Carolina 29-15 and were able to corral 14 offensive boards. Yours truly was shot charting this one and Maryland didn't hit anything outside of ten feet until Strawberry hit a three pointer with 0:59 to go. Of the 41 points Maryland scored in the first half, 17 came on second chance opportunities.

This was the first time in in recent ACC play that TRR can say that Maryland's front line outplayed the opposition. Gist had 12 points and 9 rebounds and Ekene Ibekwe had 9 points and 8 rebounds, 6 of them offensive. Osby, who should continue the Ben Wallace look-alike fro as long as he continues to play big, grabbed 4 offensive rebounds and 9 total rebounds in 18 minutes. Contrast that to the 4 rebounds Hansbrough grabbed in 28 minutes.

The first eight to ten minutes of the second half was a superb display of what makes the ACC the top conference in the country. Roy had fired the boys up in the locker room and the Tar Heels were determined to press their advantage, while Maryland kept responding with big bucket after big bucket by Strawberry. Throw in a James Gist block and another Strawberry layup, and the game was tied at 52 apiece.

That's when Carolina went on its second run of the game, using a 21-9 spurt to go up 73-61 with 8:52 left to play. Only seconds later, Ibekwe picked up his fourth foul. The point guard play was important during this stretch. At this point in the game Lawson had 7 points, 5 rebounds, and 6 assists while Hayes had only 1 assist against 4 turnovers. TRR thought about writing "game over" in his notebook, but knew better given Maryland was playing in front of the home crowd.

What surprised me most, outside of Maryland outrebounding Carolina, was at how poorly Carolina guarded the flex cuts of the Maryland offense. There were times when the first cutter was wide open, but also times when the picker was open on the flash cut to the lane after the cutter had passed. In these sets, it's often the picker who ends up open, but it takes a patient guard up top to let it play out.

The dynamics changed when Frasor missed a wide-open layup that turned into a Mike Jones three pointer on the other end. Instead of going up 79-67, Maryland was only down 77-70. A Strawberry three pointer then cut the lead to 77-73. Strawberry and Jones simply wouldn't let this one go away. Strawberry scored 27 points on a variety of slashing moves and Jones scored 18 points despite hitting only 1 of 6 three point attempts.

Down the stretch Maryland was better in all aspects of the game, including some fine free throw shooting by Gist and Ibekwe. It would be easy to conclude that Carolina lost this game on the free throw line as the Heels only shot 8-17 from the line, but the Heels really lost this game on the boards. Maryland grabbed 46 percent of their offensive rebounding opportunities. It allowed Maryland to overcome their 17 turnovers.

We at TRR know that Roy Williams and Carolina receive constant praise for the deep rotation they use. Normally we're not opposed to it since guys farther down the bench play harder and practice harder if they know any kind of minutes are in store for them. In this game, though, I thought the rotation worked against them as the offensive continuity suffered. A tighter rotation would have kept better defenders on Strawberry and Jones in the second hand while preventing the offense from sputtering.