Maryland it is..discuss

Maryland is a very good team and a really tough match up for us. Queen and Reese in the front court are more skilled offensively than our bigs and both rebound well. Their backcourt is solid also with two of their guards shooting over 40% from three. No, they aren’t deep but that really hasn’t seemed to be much of a factor being they won 27 games playing in a good conference (and their largest margin of defeat in any loss has been just six points).

We will have to play much cleaner than we did last weekend to win this game. We are deeper but if our bench shoots as poorly as it did Sunday (2-10 from the field) not sure that matters a whole lot. We need Clayton and Martin to continue their solid play and to me the key is Will Richard. He was awful Friday night and during the first half Sunday but played much better in the second half. Hopefully he continues that on Thursday.

 

Oh, didn’t know that. I don’t watch much Major League Baseball (until World Series)
Thanks for setting me straight.
You really know a lot about sports as evident in your posts on GC. As I age, I find I have not kept up with the modern changes in sports so much. Also, I greatly prefer to watch college athletics vs professional.

 

Would you say those two Md bigs are better than the bigs on the SEC teams we played this year? I’m not recalling an SEC game where there was a team with substantially better bigs than ours. One advantage is our depth and athleticism and ability for our bigs to run the court. Broome is very good but don’t think he dominated us. Texas A& M and Missouri had some hosses but they were bruisers, not so much real skilled offensive players. We’ll know soon enough.

 

I’m a fiend for useless knowledge. If I see a questionable ruling or play, I’ll usually try to research the topic so I understand better the next time I see it. I don’t watch a ton of pro sports, but I watch a wide variety of sports following the gators.

Or maybe I do it so I can point out when other people are wrong. My wife would definitely say it’s the latter.

 

Ha ha! My wife is a true learner, always reading or researching things. She is very smart but is not condescending whatsoever. Sometimes, I tell her I don’t want to learn things all the time; I just want to have fun! She will highlight any book she reads while I’d never do that. She often can predict endings of shows or movies while I’m like What, WTF, no way! I definitely married up or out-kicked my coverage, so to speak.

 

I think his play in the next few games determines whether we win it all. We can’t do it without an effective condo.

 

Did someone say the portal opened today? This is the current state of collegiate athletics.

 

They are as good as any big tandem in our league. But one big reason is that they stay on the floor. Their foul rates per 100 are pretty low (5.3 for Reese, 4.0 for Queen). Haugh and Condon have been very good in that respect (5.6 and 4.9), but that's still not as low as them. I think that's one of the reason those two cats stay on the floor 30 and 28 mpg.

 

I know I've been thinking run, run, run as a solid approach - and still do, but perhaps we need to think about attacking the rim with our guards to try and create foul trouble.

 

They play at a similar pace to us, so they are used to running. But their bigs don't foul that much, and we wouldn't be the first team to bait them into doing so. If they play drop coverage (think that's what the FBH guys said about them), then you want our guards to attack the paint looking to shoot or pass, not necessarily draw fouls. You also need to take advantage of their passivity on the glass.

 

Joke's on your friend . . . they a buncha twerps.

 

If they play drop coverage I would think that Walter and Denzel will torch them.

 

Defend the 3 and rebound. Maryland is a good-shooting team, so we can't afford to get torched there. Do those things and the Gators will be in good shape.

 

A giant among humans

 

That guys height is just absurd. Lol. That is not a short group of dudes and he towers over them like they’re dwarfs.

 

...is he getting taller?

 

I was thinking the same thing. Those people he’s towering over are all very tall!

 

I re-watched their games over the last few days against Co St, Illinois in the B10 tourney and in their loss to MSU.

I would suggest, just off those 3 games, that part of the reason their bigs don't foul a lot is because they don't always contest shots at the rim or get into the dirty scrums when rebounding.

They seem to play with the mindset to give up some of the easier stuff inside to avoid foul trouble, which is probably the best strategy for them, tbh, given their lack of depth. Queen, like most young players, doesn't seem to put in a lot of effort defensively in general.

On that same note, particularly against MSU, they struggled to stop dribble penetration by those skilled guards, especially in transition.

Reese seems to me to be the guy who turn the key. They feed off his 3s.

If we play well, we will beat them soundly, imo. If we play like the last 3 halves, we'll be in another dog fight. JMHO.