Terps Update

Damn...The Terps almost pulled off consecutive wins versus two Top 5 teams, not to mention two of their biggest rivals! Things looked very positive for the Terps when they led by nine points at halftime. However, Duke still had 42 points to the Terps 51. If somebody had told me before the game that Duke would score 42 points in the first half, I wouldn't be thrilled. Maryland had their best offensive half of the year against Duke, but they still weren't shuttnig down the Devils. And history has told us that Duke is always capable of hitting a big shot when it counts, or more likely...getting a bogus call in their direction late in the game.

Gist and Osby were huge for the Terps down low. Duke is extremely weak in the front court, and the Terrapin seniors took advantage of that. Gist had 26 and 5 while Osby had 20 and 15 on the night. Those numbers are absolutely huge. Unfortunately Maryland didn't get much help from the bigs on their bench. Shane Walker had a rebound and Dave Neal had just a bucket and a board. This was the first game of the year that Braxton Dupree didn't see the floor, and I'm not surprised by that with Duke's type of play. BD isn't in good enough shape to run up and down the floor all night, and he isn't quick enough on defense to play against Duke's four guard lineups. Whats upsetting is that Dupree was supposed to be the 3rd big man on this team, and his minutes have been 12, 6, 8, 1, and 0 so far in ACC play. Thats not a good looking trend! He hasn't shown that he is ready to be a contributor on this team.

Despite the loss it feels better to be a Terps fan now than it was a month ago. A month ago today Maryland was 6-6 after losing to American University by eight. PATHETIC! It felt like everybody who followed Maryland basketball was ready to quit on this current team and crucify Gary Williams. In the last month Maryland has gone 6-2 with a win over the previously undefeated and #1 ranked Tarheels. Their two losses were unfortunately both in conference, but by a point to Virginia Tech and to the #3 ranked Duke. This has certainly been a good month for the Terps, and it would be for any other college basketball team too. Unfortunately the hole that the Terps are climbing out of is huge. At 2-3 in the ACC, they need to win about 7 or 8 more conference games to have any shot at the NCAA tourny. 19 or 20 wins with an upset of a potential #1 seed might get them into the tournament. However, that is still questionable with losses to teams like Ohio and American.

Like most people thought, the Terps will be a better team at the end of the year than they were to start it. However, with such an unpredictable lousy stretch to begin the year, will this team be good enough to have an overall positive season. The UNC win is certainly a highlight to be remembered for years, but will that be the only redeeming memory of this season? A win over Carolina and an extremely competitive loss to a Duke team that played well tonight give me hope that the Terps have yet to peak this season.

Orioles Win and College Lacrosse

Saturday was the semi-finals for Division I lacrosse at Ravens Stadium. I watched the first game on TV between Delaware and Johns Hopkins. I really liked the Blue Hens' aggressive style. They got after the Blue Jays early, and tried to put a hit on their offensive players any time they went for a shot. They pushed around the Blue Jays for a while, but really didn't have an offense. While a combination of Delaware's aggressive style of play and missed chances by Hopkins kept the game close, it ultimately was won by the better team.

I missed most of Duke and Cornell in the other semi-final, but did catch Duke's dramatic goal to win the game with just seconds left. This just seems like a fairy tale story for the Duke program. Previous season was cancelled over false allegations, and now they come back to win the National Championship. Sounds like a movice script. I truly hope Hopkins crushes them today. As a fan of the University of Maryland, I have learned to hate Duke. Maybe the hatred starts with Coach K, but it definitely spreads to the rest of the University as well. So combine the Duke hatred with the support for the Hopkins team from Baltimore, and I will definitely be looking for a Blue Jays victory.

Now while I was watching the lacrosse games on Saturday I thought what a great day it would be to be tailgating at the stadium. You could start early before the Hopkins game...Take a break before the other semi-final matchup to fill up on food and booze, and then head over to Camden Yards for the O's game that night after a couple lacrosse games at M&T. That would truly be a great day of sports watching in Baltimore.

So on to the O's. They managed to get a win on that Saturday night game...even with Danys Baez pitching. I'd love to say that Baez pitched well, but he did give up another run on 1 hit and 2 walks. Luckily the O's bats finally came alive for 8 runs. So the O's got the win, but Baez has now given up runs in 6 of his last 7 outings. His problems certainly don't appear to be solved.

Great news however is that Miguel Tejada seems to have figured things out a bit. In his last 4 games he has 3 homeruns and 8 RBI. This is a big turnaround after hitting just two long balls in the first 6 weeks of the season.
The other guy that is playing where he is expected to is Brian Roberts. His OBP is now over .400, and he continues to steal bases and give the players behind him a chance for RBI. If these two guys can stay hot, then the O's offense will definitely pick up.

While the O's only went 3-3 on their homestand, they did win 2 out of 3 against the A's. It feels good to beat a solid team, even though they aren't the A's of a few years ago. Hopefully the O's beat up on the Royals in KC this week, and get their long road trip off to a great start.