Maryland coach Mark Turgeon has made a habit of insisting he doesn't fret about the postseason before it comes into view.
That isn't changing after Wednesday's loss to Georgia Tech damaged the Terrapins' NCAA tournament chances.
"I still don't concern myself with the postseason because we're going to be in the postseason somewhere," said Turgeon, whose team visits Wake Forest on Saturday. "We're 19-9, have three games left, the ACC tournament. We have a winning record and we're going to play in the postseason. I don't know what postseason tournament, but we're not concerned about that. It'll be good for our young team."
Maryland (7-8 in the ACC) has collected a few quality victories (Duke and N.C. State), but is just 3-7 outside of College Park. In addition, a poor nonconference schedule does little to help the Terps, who have also dropped games at Boston College and Georgia Tech in the last two weeks.
That places an onus on finishing strong and making some sort of extended push at the ACC tournament later this month.
"Ideally, we're still chasing the big one ... ," Turgeon said. "We obviously have to win a lot of games, and we obviously have to play better."
And that starts Saturday in Winston-Salem, N.C., where the Terps arrived Thursday night after remaining in Atlanta after the loss to Georgia Tech. Maryland finishes the regular season with North Carolina at home and a trip to Virginia.
"Obviously, we're struggling to win on the road and our next game is on the road," guard Logan Aronhalt said. "We're not going to start a winning streak if we can't win the next one."
In the short term, there's the matter of determining (yet again) just what to do about the point guard situation. Nick Faust tied his career-high with six turnovers after playing consecutive games without a giveaway last week.
It's led Turgeon to do something most quality teams don't have to contend with in March: Opening up the competition for the spot in practice.
"I think today's practice will determine who starts tomorrow and who will play," Turgeon said. "We told them it's wide open. We're going to base our decisions on defense and who defends the best today in our practice. It could be Nick, Pe'Shon [Howard] or [Seth] Allen. We'll see. All three of them will play. I'm more concerned about 40 minutes of play than the first five minutes."
--- Patrick Stevens
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