Bring on the hardcourt

With the Maryland football team seemingly losing an ACL every week, it’s about time to turn the attention to the men’s basketball team, which opens its season on Nov. 9.

After a tumultuous offseason that included signing recruits, losing recruits and appealing eligibility, it is fitting the team will take on No. 3 Kentucky in its opening game. Maryland lost the famed Harrison twins to the Wildcats about a month ago, and will be put to the test against the defending national champs. While the Terps won’t be expected to win, the game should prove to be an excellent early season barometer on what kind of offseason coach Mark Turgeon put the current players through.

After the game against Kentucky, Maryland will face 12 straight inferior opponents from nonmajor conferences, such as Lafayette, Georgia Southern and South CarolinaState, before opening ACC play on Jan. 5. Judgment on those games may be tough to analyze effectively, given the level of competition.

Turgeon and his team may not come out and say it, but there will certainly be tension between the Maryland and Kentucky coaching staffs, and the Terps would love to play early season spoiler to a team that “stole” their recruits.

As for the season as a whole, Turgeon will have to rely on several freshman to provide a bulk of the scoring if the Terps want to compete in an ACC filled with talented teams. As the rankings are now, Maryland is scheduled to play a ranked ACC opponent seven times, with four games against No. 8 Duke and No. 11 UNC. But perhaps the biggest early season splash is NC State’s No. 6 preseason ranking, ahead of its in-state rivals for the first time in 37 years. The Terps will face the Wolfpack only once in the regular season, at home on Jan. 16.

The starting lineup for the Terps is difficult to project, given the number of freshmen, and whether Turgeon wants to open with an experienced five, or a talented five.

If Turgeon opts for the former approach, expect junior Pe’Shon Howard, sophomore Nick Faust and senior Logan Aronhault in the back court, with sophomore Alex Len and senior James Padgett in the front court.

However, if Turgeon throws out experience as a factor for his starters, then we may see Howard, Faust and freshman Seth Allen alongside fellow freshman Shaquille Cleare and Len. This lineup certainly has more potential for explosive basketball, as Allen is more of a playmaker than Aronhault, but as such is also more turnover prone.

Whatever the approach, this team is without a doubt a much deeper, and thus more talented team than last year’s, and will get to show off that added talent against the college superpower that is Kentucky, before facing one of the strongest conferences in years. Then again, why would it even be easy for the Terps?

Terps' attendance, The Crew and all things Maryland soccer

Maryland’s win over No. 2 North Carolina Friday night was the perfect microcosm of the Terps’ season.

Entering the game as the top soccer team in the country, the Terps did not disappoint. While the thrilling back-and-forth game included a saved penalty shot towards the end of regulation and a winning goal in overtime, perhaps the most impressive thing to take away from this game was the attendance.

Ludwig Field hosted 7,340 fans on Friday, the second highest total in the team’s history. However, this figure was reached during a night filled with thunderstorms and high winds. How many people stayed home because of the weather? I don’t think a total of 10,000 people would be a crazy estimate had there been fair weather.

To put this into context, I looked up a few attendance numbers. Maryland has averaged 3,561 fans per game this season. North Carolina averages only 1,984 people per game, although they have also been a top soccer program for years. This is a testament to Maryland soccer fans, as well as The Crew, an independent club that organizes soccer tailgates and in-game chants for every game, often even traveling to opposing schools.

What The Crew has done as an independent institution deserves praise from Maryland for their ability to draw fans. While the team itself without a doubt is worth the trip to Ludwig Field, The Crew has done an underrated job of garnering attention for the game via social media outlets.

The Terps have two home games remaining, and you know The Crew will be out there in full force. The only question is how many others will show up as well. The Terps need the support, as they look to continue towards an undefeated season, rain or shine.

An unbiased bias

The following is a response from another blog site, where a friend and fellow journalism student, Zainab Mudallal, wrote on the meaning of the Duke rivalry, and why it exists at all:

This week I must admit that I was fairly absent from any Maryland sporting event. I didn’t go to a soccer game, I wasn’t able to watch the football game and I certainly wasn’t going to Maryland Madness (for one reason or another). Thus, after reading through some of this week’s posts I am interested in writing a follow up blog to Zainab’s discussion over what exactly the relationship is between Maryland and Duke at this point in time.

I’ve been a die hard Terrapins fan since the early 2000s, due in part because I was born and raised in Baltimore, and because Maryland is my father’s alma mater. Watching Terps basketball was as common for me as a kid as watching the Ravens and Orioles play. With that, I will be the first to tell you that Maryland and Duke do not have a rivalry at this time. Over the past few seasons, the “rivalry” has been mostly a side show to the actual dominance Duke’s powerhouse program has shown during a stretch of rebuilding years in College Park. But that isn’t to say that it didn’t once exist, regardless of what any Duke fan will tell you.

There are several ways to look at how the rivalry blossomed between 2000 and 2007. There is an almost textual and subtextual nature to the conversation, and providing facts is most likely the most efficient way to begin. Average fans of college basketball would most likely be surprised to know just how close the two teams were head-to-head in those seven seasons.

Duke and Maryland squared off a total of 17 times, with two games coming in the ACC tournament and one in the NCAA tournament. Maryland won eight of the games, with several being extremely close or going into overtime. While Maryland was a national contender those early years, it’s not like Duke was going through a down time. In fact, after Maryland’s championship run in 2001, you could argue that Duke was the stronger side for the next five seasons.

But Maryland was always a thorn in Duke’s side. Several games of note, including Duke’s win over Maryland in the 2000 NCAA Final Four, and Maryland’s underdog overtime victory in the ACC championship game in 2004, stoked the fire of a brimming rivalry. Some years, the teams would split the head-to-head series. In the 2003-2004 season, Duke beat Maryland twice before their surprise demise to the Terps in the ACC final. In the 2004-2005 season, Maryland wasn’t even good enough to make the Big Dance, yet they still beat a strong Duke side twice. Duke returned the favor by sweeping Maryland in the 2005-2006 season. Guess what? Maryland would sweep the season series the following year.

But I believe the hatred was deeper than the close contests. I decided to compile a list of intangible reasons for the rivalry, and came up with the following: Duke’s preppy private school stereotype verses Maryland’s public school image, Cameron Indoor stadium verses Cole Field House, arguably the two loudest arenas for a visiting team to play in the entire country, and finally the competition between long time coaches Gary Williams and Mike Krzyzewski, who have combined for 1,595 total wins.

My point in all of this is for the uninformed naysayer who believes there never was a rivalry, and for the fool who thinks a true rivalry between the teams currently exists. Duke and UNC have a legitimate rivalry because of their vicinity, but mostly because the games have been extremely competitive for a long period of time. The UMD-Duke rivalry was blossoming into one of the best in college basketball, but was not sustained due to Maryland’s fall from prominence. Rivalries, in reality, live and die, but maybe Maryland will rise again soon and reestablish the hatred between the contrasting schools.

Basketball recruiting needs to pick up the pieces, fast

In the wake of Aaron and Andrew Harrison’s decision to go to the University of Kentucky, the University of Maryland men’s basketball program is left picking up the pieces for the 2013-2014 recruiting class.

Maryland’s incoming freshman class this year is already highly anticipated in the College Park area as well as on a national scale. But the inability to lure the twin prospects has left a hole in the Terps 2014 class.

Alongside Damonte Dodd, who is expected to spend a year at prep school before joining the Terps next fall, Maryland’s next big prospect is four-star recruit Roddy Peters.

Peters, a 6-foot-4-inch point guard from Suitland, Md., was once said to be thrilled at any opportunity to play for his home state. However, basketball pundits believe that Maryland’s push towards the Harrison twins may have turned Peters away from the Terps and towards local recruiting rival Georgetown and Kansas.

Coach Mark Turgeon seems to have put himself in a bit of a whole, although you can hardly blame him. The opportunity to grab two top-five national recruits was too good to pass up, but has all of Turgeon and his staff’s attention on the twins shooed away an impressionable teen who is well aware that he is now a “backup plan” of sorts?

Peters, ranked No. 43 on the ESPN top 100 list for 2013-2014, is really the last play for Turgeon. Adding a stud point guard to a rising class of big men including Shaquille Cleare, Jake Layman and Charles Mitchell is paramount for a program looking to turn the corner in the recruiting game.

With a zone-heavy team like Syracuse joining the conference next season, the value of a strong point guard only increases in a deeper ACC.

If former Xavier guard Dez Wells has to wait until next season to don a Terp uniform, Maryland fans would love to see him share the backcourt with Peters, who is still unsure about when he will commit. Maryland fans just hope Peters hasn’t lost that original desire to play in College Park.

It’ll be up to the Maryland coaching staff to make sure the interest is still there. If Turgeon wants to compete in the ACC in the future, Peters’ decision might just depend on it.

After recent upsets, is this the year for men's soccer?

The Maryland men’s soccer team has had its share of triumphs and disappointments over the past ten years. The Terps are proud to have won two national championships, in 2005 and 2008, but they also boast three semifinal losses as well as recent early round exits. After back-to-back seasons with a first round bye in the NCAA tournament, the Terps did not come close to their own lofty expectations with a quarterfinal loss in 2010, and a third round loss in 2011.

As the Terps kicked off the second half of the 2012 season with a 3-2 win against College of Charleston Saturday night, expectations are once again mounting for the top-ranked men’s soccer team in the nation.

In a Diamondback article from Sept. 28, head coach Sasho Cirovski claimed that Maryland’s aim this season is to win the ACC and NCAA championships. While, a No. 1 ranking certainly shows that this team is capable of doing so, is it wise to put so much pressure on a team that has struggled recently as the favorite?

One aspect of the Terps’ game that could prove beneficiary in tournament play is their ability to get goals from a variety of players. While forward Patrick Mullins has paced the team with five goals, 11 other Terps also have scored this year, and seven have more than one goal. This versatility will give opposing defenses nightmares when decided who to watch for.

Another statistic of note is Maryland’s sheer dominance in terms of shot differential. As of Oct. 1, the Terps have taken more than twice as many shots as their opponents, with 143 taken verses 62 conceded. If this glaring disparity continues into the postseason, it will be incredibly difficult to keep pace with the Terps over the course of a 90-minute game.

Maryland plays six of its last eight regular season games in College Park, and finishing strong will be instrumental towards guaranteeing home field advantage in the ACC and NCAA tournament early round games. In both competitions, the higher seeded team plays at home until the semi-finals, and the ACC will finish its tournament in Germantown, Md. this year, another potential advantage for the Terps.

So how are we to react to Cirovski’s comments on his lofty expectations? Perhaps deferring to a 20-year coaching veteran’s judgment is best. Nonetheless, the road towards Cirovski’s goals seems to be paved in such a way where there will be no excuses for the Terps and no blame to place but on themselves.