The home/road splits. Yes. They're notable.

Because (a) I take requests on Twitter (that's @D1scourse), (b) WNST's Glenn Clark keeps harping on this topic and (c) Maryland's dominance in conference home games is getting to be pretty remarkable, taking a look at Maryland's home/road splits seemed like a good way to kill part of a morning.

This is only conference games (now that there's five home and five road, there's a solid enough sample size to work with), and it's confined to scoring-related issues mainly because this could spiral out of control if 18 categories were wedged into a chart. 

So that leaves scoring, field goal percentage and 3-point field goals percentage. Just the nine players in Maryland's typical rotation are examined, and I've put in bold a couple notable differences in the home/road splits.

Player	Pts (H)	Pts (A)	FG% (H)	FG% (A)	3FG% (H)	3FG% (A)
21-Vasquez	22.6	19.4	.512	.415	.516	.370
1-Milbourne	15.2	9.4	.604	.380	.600 (3/5)	.167 (1/6)
5-Hayes	12.0	9.2	.556	.515	.619	.333
20-Williams	7.8	9.0	.459	.556	---	---
14-Mosley	7.4	5.4	.440	.333	.500 (2/4)	.000 (0/2)
24-Tucker	7.0	6.0	.542	.440	.400 (4/10)	.333 (3/9)
33-Gregory	7.0	2.4	.667	.154	---	---
22-Bowie	3.0	5.8	.429	.321	.333 (1/3)	.400 (2/5)
35-Padgett	2.2	0.8	.300	.250	---	---

As a team, Maryland is averaging 84.6 points on 51.8 percent shooting and 52.0 percent 3-point shooting in ACC home games.

On the road, the Terps are averaging 67.2 points on 40.9 percent shooting and 32.8 percent 3-point shooting.

So, yeah, they're a vastly different team. Landon Milbourne and Dino Gregory, in particular, are remarkably wide home/road splits. The only guy who plays better on the road is Jordan Williams.

So where to begin explaining this away, besides falling into the usual witless "teams are better at home than on the road" trap.

Well, let's start with the fact Maryland has played only one ACC team with viable NCAA tournament hopes in College Park. That was Florida State. On the road, the Terps have played Clemson, Duke, Florida State and Wake Forest.

So like it or not, the competition is better on the road. And not just that, but Duke, Florida State and Wake Forest are the three teams with particularly imposing size. That might just influence the numbers for Milbourne and Gregory a bit.

Nevertheless, the stats for those two have a whiff of the sort of spread a Colorado Rockies slugger traditionally faces in his home/road splits. The chasm is just too wide for size and competition issues to explain it all away.

That's why it's worth it to delve into the 3-point shooting for Vasquez and Hayes, who are the only guys with enough attempts to even begin thinking about drawing a larger conclusion. Those are massive differences, and the only logical conclusion to draw is the familiarity with the backdrop at Comcast has more than a little something to do with the success.

Maryland, you might have noticed, has only three home games remaining. So those sizzling numbers might not hold up too much longer.

Or perhaps competition really does factor in a whole bunch, and visits from Clemson and Duke and Georgia Tech will act as a correcting mechanism for the home date. It's tough to say. But what isn't difficult to assert is Maryland is a dominant homecourt team in league play, so much so that it makes the Terps' road data look worse than it really is.

Comments

[terpbugman]

First of all, thank you for your column. It's obvious you think deeply about the Terps and try to get to the reason behind things. I also like what you do because I like statistical analysis and you take a look at the stats.

Now concerning the Terps and their road record, this is my theory: I've noticed that they seem to rush things too much when they're on the road. Everything that looks comfortable at home is suddenly rushed as if they're trying to ram it down their opponent's throat. The reason they won at Fl St was because they refused to be rushed, took things deliberately, and ran their sets. That can't be said for any of their three ACC losses.

[D1scourse]

terpbugman ---

I think youre partially right. Maryland looked rushed at Wake Forest in large part because of impatience. But at Duke and Clemson, it probably had as much to do with the opposing defense.

Duke clearly frazzled the Terps, and their shot selection turned out to be awful. With Clemson, Maryland was so sloppy it wasted plenty of possessions before it even got a shot off.

But overall, Maryland hasnt run its offense as patiently on the road --- and it has a great deal to do with the wide splits.

[Glenn Clark]

Can we make the gold jersey request next?

Thanks sir.