BALTIMORE, Maryland January 24, 2016 - Right off the top of the page, understand I'm an alum and thus this stuff is way too important to me. Okay?
That being said, what happened going down the wire at Michigan State tonight proved nothing about the problems with Michigan State, which are glaring. Denzel Valentine is good, but not nearly as good as the State press machine wants you to believe. Three or four players on Maryland are better, and that's the cruxt of this.
:Melo Trimble got Maryland into a position to win on the road, in the second half, and then never saw the ball. Rasheed Sulaimon was fouled going hard to the basket in transition near the end of the game, when he had to score or draw a foul. He drew a foul, a very obvious 'point of emphasis' foul. Matt Costello - who gave tingles to the ESPN Announcers - blocked the shot, "clean" if anything is clean after a teammate fouls a shooter before your block. The teammate - and I think it was Bryn Forbes - had his hands on Sulaimon the whole drive down the lane. Watch the replay and tell me I'm wrong. The whole entire drive all the way down the lane to the basket there were hands on Sulaimon's hip! Michigan State had hands on Sulaimon's hip. No call, no whistle, just cheeky good times by all in East Lansing. And the ESPN bootsies were having a Chris Matthews tingle moment about the Costello block. Very embarassing. We all heard about the fact that 'hands on' defense wasn't going to be allowed on drives to the basket. But it becomes okay at East Lansing when the conference cabal's hero has lost three straight.
I did appreciate the ESPN producer or director, or both, for the numerous shots of Izzo and the one official having cheek-to-cheek chats going down the wire. I guess all the genius class at Big Ten headquarters think this is good for the conference. Whatever they think, Kevin Anderson and Turgeon need to let them know what Maryland thinks. It is nothing short of embarassing. If the genius class tells Anderson and friends that this is good for the conference, he and Turgeon need to come up with an appropriate response. It is awful. And it is more awful when the predictable calls follow the cheeky talks. Really awful. Really really awful.
I guess Kevin Anderson is too involved in political correctness and selling out (tickets) to realize what the Big Ten is doing to Maryland Basketball. Maryland plays at Michigan State, but Michigan State does not come to Maryland in a season when those two were predicted by all to fight it out for the title. It also comes one year after Maryland, in their first year in the conference, swept Michigan State in a real home-and-home. Look at the Maryland Basketball schedule. I looked at it. Did Anderson? Did anybody at Maryland do anything about it? If they did, I didn't hear about it. There were no protest letters released to the press. Izzo, it is said, didn't prepare adequately for Maryland coming in last season because Turgeon had been struggling. Izzo didn't make the same mistake twice.
Turgeon and his assistants have recruited very very well. The game coaching hasn't kept pace. Don't get me wrong, Turgeon is not a bad game coach. I think he could be better. He has the brains. He knows the game. Maybe he and Gary Williams could sit down and look at some of the games. Turgeon still doesn't know how to coach some of Gary's trickery. Williams could turn the last two minutes into an hour. Even when he didn't want to call a time out after a Maryland free throw, he'd have somebody ready to come in, which got a horn and some time to set up the defense. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that Diamond Stone can't be playing 20 minutes. If he up and leaves Maryland after this season, but not to turn pro, I won't blame him. The 'coming off the bench' nonsense was kind of cute until the Michigan game. After that it is a joke. Turgeon has proved that he knows how to lose players who get angry at being mis-used. If Trimble turns pro, and Stone leaves, it will not be even a little bit funny. And I'm worried Cekovsky is going to leave also.
Maryland has to give the ball to Trimble when it matters. And the rest of the team doesn't have to stand around when Trimble has it. Sulaimon keeps moving. Layman keeps moving. Maybe Layman should stand still.
Maryland played good defense against Northwestern. They played pretty good defense against Michigan State at times. At times. Maryland has to have an attitude about defense. Maryland has to be really really angry about the way they're treated, by the Big Ten, the NCAA, the whole cabal.
When Maryland got the lead in the second half, they needed to slice State's head off. The defensive temperature should've been turned up 100%. Trimble should've been living with the ball. Turgeon may never get a player this good again. There aren't many Trimbles out there. When it matters, give him the bloody ball. And when you get a second half lead in East Lansing, that's the time when it matters.
Why was Layman jacking up shots and losing the ball on drives going down the wire? He ought to be spotting up on the perimeter, and maybe driving from there. But the dribbling to penetrate? Please! He had three seasons to show if he could do that in crunch time and in big games. Three years.
Also in crunch time, Costello got a long rebound after pushing Diamond Stone. Costello was in bad position to begin with, between two Maryland players and not underneath the boards. So he pushed Stone. Then he out-jumped the guard on the other side of him. But the ESPN lads were tingling. Pretty. The officials were impressed, or something.
If Trimble can go 35 minutes, Stone should be able to go 30 or 28. We have got to get rebounds at the end of big games. We have got a great young man who makes free throws and scored 39 in a conference game. We don't need him on the bench for half the game.
This is a final four team if ever there was one. Turgeon needs to get an attitude over there, not with his kids - never with his kids and especially not with these kids, who are wonderful - but with the game officials and the Big Ten, which are both awful. The officiating is juvenile. The officials even act juvenile. Cheeky talks. Not even the ACC got this low. This is a conference that should be called the Big Cabal. I thought the ACC and Tobacco Road was a mess. Now I know why Bobby Knight was so angry all the time. You tell me what would be appropriate for a cheeky talk followed by chuckles. This is the progression at East Lansing: Cheeky Talks, Chuckles, and Awful Officiating benefitting the East Lansing people.
Maryland - if there is anything right about college basketball - should've lost their last game tonight. Okay.
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