The first half of Maryland's 69-61 win over Illinois was as ugly a half of basketball as you'd ever want to see. It actually resembled our lunchtime pick-up games in some ways-- lots of really clever passes being throw to guys who weren't ready, weren't able to catch the ball, or just weren't on the same team as the guy throwing the ball. Basketball is a simple game, and when you complicate it unnecessarily, it gets ugly, fast.
They didn't get a whole lot better in the second half, but they did at least start hitting some shots. Maryland hit a few more shots than Illinois, and managed to pull it out in the end, despite giving up a ridiculous number of offensive rebounds, again.
This game was part of the "Big Ten- ACC Challenge," which once again wasn't all that challenging for the ACC, who won eight of the eleven games, and has never "lost" in the history of the Challenge. Maybe they need to find somebody else to challenge.
Miscellaneous commentary below the fold:
-- Maryland's freshman center Braxton Dupree reminds me a lot of Lonny Baxter. He's big, has some decent offensive moves, and has a weird inability to catch the damn ball when it comes off the glass. Half of Illinois's offensive rebounds passed through his hands first.
-- I like Greivis Vasquez's energy and competitiveness, but he needs to work on his decision-making. He throws way too many overly cute bounce passes through traffic and bad lobs. He also chucked up a couple of deeply ridiculous threes in the early going.
-- Eric Hayes played a good game, breaking out of a bit of a shooting slump to score 18 and shoot 4-7 from three. The two sophomore guards (Hayes and Vasquez) continue to be the best thing about this team.
-- The post players, on the other hand, are a major source of concern. James Gist has apparently decided to showcase his long-range offensive game, and continues to have awful defensive fundamentals. He's consistently out of position, and uses his shot-blocking ability to compensate. This works well against teams that are a little shaky themselves, but it's going to cause trouble.
Aside from Gist, Dupree has some promise, but is kind of slow, and looked really winded a lot of the time. Bambale Osby continues to have the best hair in the league, and provides a nice physical presence, but he's apparently been sick, and didn't get that much court time.
-- Another Vasquez note: he seems to spend an inordinate amount of time on the opposite side of the lane from the guy he's supposed to be guarding. Lucky for him, Illinois shot terribly from three, because there were at least five plays in the second half where an Illinoi player went up for a wide-open three, with Vasquez running out at him from the middle of the lane. I don't know what he hell he's doing, but I wish he would stop.
-- Every year, I am shocked anew by just how bad Mike Patrick is. It's worst when he's paired with Dick Vitale, of course, but even with Len Elmore, he's just a horrible play-by-play guy. Half of the time, he's really doing color commentary, and when he does deign to provide actual updates about the game in progress, he gets a shocking number of things wrong, and doesn't bother to correct them. I don't understand why he continues to get work.
This is a decent win for Maryland, though Illinois doesn't look like that great a team. The Terps still need more work on their inside play (says the post player), and they've got two games to figure it out (against VCU and Morgan State) before they open ACC play against Boston College next Sunday. If they don't, it could be ugly.
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