Tobacco Road Report

By Michael

After being tied at 31 at half, Maryland outscored Florida State 42-24 in the second half to defeat the Seminoles 73-55. The victory is Maryland's fourth in a row in conference play, moves them to 7-6 in conference and 21-7 overall, and solidifies their NCAA Tournament chances. In contrast, FSU drops to 5-9 in conference and, barring a miracle in the ACC Conference Tournament, the Seminoles have waved a NCAA bid goodbye. Even with Al Thornton, FSU is clearly a different team without Tony Douglas.

TRR was pleased to see that both teams brought high energy into this contest. Maryland clearly wanted to push the tempo from the start, hoping that this could take Al Thornton out of the half court flow where he has proven so dangerous. TRR was very interested to see who the Terrapins would put on Thornton, and the early choice was James Gist.

The pressure defense worked for Maryland early on, creating a few turnovers and leading to easy buckets. Al Thornton couldn't get into the flow and didn't score his first bucket until 13:20 left in the half. On offense, the Terrapin guards were able to get dribble penetration into the heart of the Seminole defense -- something they were able to do all night long -- which lead to open three point looks from the corner. The Terrapins were able to build an 8 point lead with 8 minutes left to play before the half, and looked poised to take control.

However, the aggression on defense started to build up fouls. Mike Jones picked up his second foul at the 18:16 mark, but the real trouble came when Strawberry, Ibekwe, and Gist picked up their second fouls at the 12:50, 8:39, and 6:41 marks, respectively. With several of the starters out, the Terrapins pulled back on the pressure and the pace slowed dramatically.

As the pace slowed, Thornton heated up, finishing with 16 points and 9 rebounds at the half. Recognizing that he was being guarded exclusively by Maryland bigs, Hamilton started feeding Thornton on the wing which opened up the jumper or dribble penetration. The strategy worked and the teams went into the locker rooms with the score tied 31-31.

To open the second half, Maryland brought the pressure again and FSU had no response. Strawberry came out with six quick points: one after an offensive rebound by Ibekwe, a second after a Terrapin block, and a third on a Seminole turnover. Two more layups later and after a sweet dish by Vasquez in traffic to Ibekwe for a dunk put Maryland up 43-31 with 16:06 left to play (TRR replayed that pass several times and still can't figure out how it made it through).

Florida State was finished and wouldn't record their first bucked of the second half until the 13:30 mark. Successive time-outs by Hamilton couldn't reverse the trend.

For the second straight game, Maryland improved on the defensive glass. We at TRR have harped on the Terrapins for not finishing defensive possessions by cleaning the glass. Against FSU, they were able to corral 67 percent of their defensive rebounding opportunities and generally limited FSU to one and out opportunities. The Terrapins then won the turnover margin 16-9 and finished with ten more field goal attempts than FSU.

When Maryland holds the defensive glass, their overall defense is credible. We continue to think this is the key for Maryland in the tournament.

On offense, the three guard sets that Williams uses are effective in creating a mismatch somewhere, which has led to dribble penetration. The Terrapins had 23 assists on 27 made field goals last night, or an assist on 35 percent of their total possessions. Of the 15 made field goal TRR recorded for the Terrapins in the second half, 13 were layups or in-close shots, signifying how effective Maryland was at slicing apart the Seminole defense.

Hayes and Vasquez teamed up for 15 assists against only 3 turnovers. When these two are efficient, it elevates the games of Strawberry and Jones. Jones has the distance while Strawberry is an effective slasher in the paint and finisher on the break. Jones finished with 14 points on 4-6 three pointers while Strawberry had all of his ten points in the second half.

We thought FSU needed this game to stay relevant and we think this loss eliminates any chance of a NCAA tournament bid (barring some miracle run in the ACC Conference Tournament). Maryland has three games left against UNC, Duke, and NC State. Consequently, they have a good shot at finishing even in conference and securing one of the six bids that we see the ACC receiving.