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Hype, hope and properly gauging Maryland

Maryland's season of hype and hope, the twin elixirs fueling fans of a talented team, is a week old.

Three games in November rarely define a season, barring a spate of injuries.

Three games in November generally are a poor sample size for sweeping statements.

Three games in November usually prompt reminders of the universal truth of teams looking far different months down the road than they do less than 10 percent of the way in their seasons.

So any evaluation of the Terrapins in the wake of Friday's harrowing 65-58 defeat of Rider is undoubtedly premature.

Well, except for one thing: Maryland might finish the season on a tier without peer. It isn't there now.

Not after spotting Georgetown a 9-0 lead on Tuesday. Not after falling behind by 14 points to a solid (but hardly imposing) Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference team.

This isn't a bad thing for the Terps (3-0). There is no guaranteed path to a Final Four, and the reality is having some issues exposed while winning is exponentially better than the other option. In a month, Maryland not taking a lead against the Broncs (0-3) for the first time until a Melo Trimble 3-pointer with 3:25 to play.

Mid-November basketball isn't usually the smoothest, and the Terps endured their share of defensive deficiencies for the better part of 24 minutes. They also had no answer for Rider's zone, and for all of coach Mark Turgeon's insistence his team can handle that defense, expect Maryland to see more of it in the coming week or two --- perhaps even as early as early as Tuesday in Cancun against Illinois State.

But that's hardly a permanent fate, just as freshman center Diamond Stone's struggles against Georgetown gave way to an efficient 12-point showing in 19 minutes against the Broncs. Likewise, Turgeon's insistence his team had not worked much with a lineup featuring Jake Layman at the four and Robert Carter Jr. as the lone big earlier in the week isn't true anymore; Maryland spent much of the second half going small. 

The Terps ultimately emerged as too big, too deep and eventually too good on defense (while throwing out their own 1-3-1 scheme for a while in the second half) for Rider. All of those are enviable traits. None provide a guarantee.

The hype of a juggernaut, at least from the start of the season, is rightfully tempered in College Park. That's not a bad thing. The hope of a memorable season rightfully remains.

Still, getting a proper read on the Terps is going to take some time. It's good for them, then, that plenty of it remains to truly sort things out.

A few other tidbits from Friday ...

* Maryland used a nine-man rotation in the first half. Aside from a cameo from Varun Ram, it rotated seven after the break. Neither center Michal Cekovsky (making his second career start) nor reserve point guard Jaylen Brantley played in the second half.

* Trimble has missed eight free throws (out of 26) in three games. Last year, he missed 33 (out of 240) over 35 games.

* Jake Layman (11 points, 11 rebounds) had the fifth double-double of his career. The previous four came last season (against Oklahoma State, Oakland, Rutgers and Michigan State).

At the buzzer: Loyola-UMBC takeaways

Loyola rolled to a 76-57 victory over UMBC. It had superior offensive rebounding when it mattered most to credit for the triumph.

The Greyhounds scored 13 second-chance points in the first half (aided by 52.6 offensive rebounding percentage before the break) to snap a two-game slide to open the season.

Whether it was Jarred Jones or Cam Gregory, Loyola largely had its way in the paint in the first half. It provided more than enough of a cushion to withstand a brief spurt from the Retrievers (0-3) in the second half before re-asserting control in the last 12 minutes.

A few other takeaways from Loyola's ninth consecutive victory in the series. ...

1. Loyola isn't going to overthink things against teams with vulnerable frontcourts. The Greyhounds badly missed Jarred Jones, who played in only two games a season ago because of a knee injury, and it was clear in their exhibition earlier this month they would play through him. The 6-foot-7 redshirt junior appears prepared to handle it.

Jones (26 points, 11 rebounds) scored with ease against the UMBC frontcourt, some of it on second-chance opportunities but much of it simply from outplaying whoever happened to be matched up on him. Loyola's struggled in its first couple years in the Patriot League, but it boasts the advantage of possessing one of the league's most athletic big men. That alone makes the Greyhounds a bit of a sleeper in the balanced league.

2. The bounceback was a welcome development for the Greyhounds coming off a brutal loss. Loyola dropped a 71-68 decision to LIU Brooklyn on Monday, a setback notable for two reasons: It overcame a 13-point deficit, and it lost on a 23-footer banked in at the buzzer.

It's early, and that sort of setback shouldn't really change the trajectory of the season for a team that knows full well its year will be defined by conference play and the league tournament. A solid showing the next time out, though, doesn't hurt. Loyola needed a little more than four minutes to build a 10-4 lead and never trailed in a mostly comfortable victory.

3. Rodney Elliott doesn't look like he's too far off from where he was a year ago. Just as Loyola knows Jones is its best player, UMBC is cognizant it played nearly all of last season without its most effective offensive player. Elliott, the America East's rookie of the year in 2013-14, was lost to season-ending shoulder surgery after last year's opener.

Coach Aki Thomas has surrounded Elliott with more talent than two seasons ago, though much of it remains young. The Retrievers are going to need  Elliott to maintain a heavy offensive load; with 13 points against Wake Forest, 16 against St. John's and now 19 against Loyola, he's already playing a crucial role in the season's opening week.

4. The return of Will Darley is only going to help UMBC. The junior missed the Retrievers' first two games with injury, and his absence for 11 games with a knee injury last season only escalated the pressure on a roster that was critically shorthanded.

UMBC used a nine-man rotation in Darley's absence to start this year, a luxury it didn't have nearly all of last year. But he still had seven points and three rebounds in 15 minutes in his season debut, and a healthy Darley should help alleviate some of the pressure on the one freshman the Retrievers have pressed into the starting lineup (Joe Sherburne). Still, expect a big role for Sherburne, who has scored eight points Wednesday after reachin double figures in the first two games and logged at least 30 minutes in all three contests.

George Washington's 73-point showing against Virginia, in context

On the surface, there's one easy takeaway from George Washington's 73-68 defeat of Virginia on Monday.

Namely, George Washington scored 73 points against Virginia.

And that hasn't happened in regulation against the Cavaliers in nearly two years. So, yeah, the Colonials (2-0) were pretty good offensively.

Now, some of that was arguably a function of a shorter shot clock, though George Washington didn't flirt with going a full 30 seconds on a possession nearly as much as Virginia's opponents tended to the last two seasons with 35 seconds to work with. The Colonials also scored 23 points at the foul line, making 82.1 percent of their free throws.

But the bottom line is the last team to score more than 73 points in regulation on Virginia was Tennessee in a 87-52 Cavalier loss on Dec. 30, 2013. Since then, only three teams have reached the 70-point plateau in regulation against Virginia, a span of 60 games.

The rundown of the most points surrendered by Virginia since the calendar turned to 2014:

80: at Miami, Jan. 3, 2015 in 2OT (63 in regulation)

75: at Maryland, March 9, 2014 in OT (64 in regulation)

73: at George Washington, Nov. 17, 2015

72: Davidson, Dec. 30, 2014

71: vs. North Carolina, March 13, 2015

69: at Duke, Jan. 13, 2014

69: Duke, Jan. 31, 2015

With defeat of Virginia, George Washington's scheduling just got more difficult

There are few things as underappreciated in college basketball as the art of scheduling, at least for good teams --- especially for those with only so much leverage to work with.

That's one way of describing George Washington, which built a brilliant slate for a veteran team for this particular season. It got Penn State, Rutgers and Seton Hall to come to the raucous Smith Center in December, and also returns a game to DePaul. All have some power conference pedigree. None are particularly dominant (though the Colonials lost to Penn State and Seton Hall last season).

But the jewel of the schedule was a visit from Virginia, the back end of a home-and-home coach Mike Lonergan acknowledges wasn't easy to come by. And Monday's 73-68 victory over the Cavaliers in a crammed building is only going to make it even trickier for George Washington to lure more quality teams to its home gym.

"We really have trouble scheduling," Lonergan said. "We work very hard, [director of basketball operations] Matt Lisiewski, myself and [athletic director Patrick] Nero. For them, that loss shouldn't hurt them if we do what we're supposed to do this year. We have to take advantage of those opportunities. We don't get them very often. Sure, I wish Maryland would play us or Georgetown would play us. I give all the credit. This guy will play."

"This guy" is Tony Bennett, whose Cavaliers have shown a willingness to play in a variety of settings as they've gotten better and better. Virginia opened 2012-13 at George Mason and last year at James Madison. It played a home-and-home with Virginia Commonwealth. It visited Wisconsin-Green Bay (Bennett's alma mater) and lost two seasons ago.

The number of high-major coaches willing to regularly risk such situations isn't particularly high, both for competitive and financial reasons. When the discussion is about playing a school with a track record of beating big-name programs, the willingness to take a gamble decreases even more.

In just the last three seasons, George Washington defeated Miami, Creighton, Rutgers (twice), Maryland, Georgia, DePaul, Colorado, Wichita State, Pittsburgh and Virginia. Not all of those teams from high-profile leagues are actually good (here's looking at you, Rutgers). The Colonials caught an apathetic Pitt team in the NIT. The Maryland of two years ago isn't as good as it is now.

But with that many notable triumphs, it's not accidental. And the Colonials' hope of getting Virginia to visit Foggy Bottom for the first time since 1983 in this particular year wasn't random, either.

Patricio Garino, who scored 18 points on an efficient night, is a senior. Point guard Joe McDonald? Also a senior. Center Kevin Larsen, whose passing was crucial to besting the Cavaliers' stingy defense? A senior as well. Wake Forest transfer Tyler Cavanaugh, who matched Garino with 18 points, is a fourth-year junior.

In Lonergan's rebuilding project, this was the season George Washington was building toward. Monday doesn't completely silence some of the larger concerns about the Colonials (though reserve guard Paul Jorgensen turned in a stellar performance to provide some oomph off the bench), but it also functioned as a reminder of how dangerous this veteran team can be in the right circumstances.

"It's definitely memorable for life," Garino said. "I think beating ranked teams three years in a row is a big deal, but we're honestly not surprised."

Nope, and he shouldn't be. But getting Virginia (or an another nonconference team of its quality) to come to the Smith Center again anytime soon would qualify as increasingly unexpected after Monday.

At the buzzer: Maryland-Mount St. Mary's takeaways

The opening night of Maryland's much-hyped basketball season produced the sort of performance that can generally be expected in mid-November.

The Terrapins weren't perfect. They clearly need some work defensively on the perimeter.

Oh, and they can score. A lot. From just about anywhere.

Maryland's 80-56 defeat of Mount St. Mary's was never in much doubt after the first 10 minutes. For as long as the Mountaineers (0-1) are --- and considering their size, they'll be a fascinating team to watch in the guard-centric Northeast Conference --- they weren't going to out-athlete the Terps anywhere on the floor.

Jake Layman's senior season started with promise, a 16-point showing. Melo Trimble (14points) had a standard-issue game, which is to say a good one. And Diamond Stone had 10 points in a solid debut, while Robert Carter Jr. posted 10 points and eight rebounds.

Meanwhile, the Terps comfortably rotated nine players throughout.

Much more will be learned about Maryland on Tuesday, when Georgetown pays a visit. But there were a few notable things worth mentioning to cap the first night of the season.

1. The Terrapins were a bit careless with the ball in the early going. The biggest nit to pick with Maryland in its opener? Eight turnovers in 36 first-half possessions. Half of the giveaways came from the bigs, the Terps had only six giveaways after the break and things generally don't look great on Nov. 13. Nonetheless, it was a sloppy start.

2. Rasheed Sulaimon started, Jared Nickens came off the bench ... and both will play plenty. Sulaimon, the Duke transfer, played 29 minutes and finished with five points. Nickens, who got the nod in last week's exhibition game, had 11 points in 23 minutes. But with Dion Wiley not expected to play this season because of meniscus surgery, the minutes splits for those two won't be all that interesting unless either logs far less than 20 minutes.

3. Maryland received a defensive test from an opponent only too happy to bomb away. Mount St. Mary's hit 10 shots from 3-point range, which might be a concern for Maryland were it not for the fact the Mountaineers are not remotely bashful. BK Ashe (18 points) will shoot when open, Will Miller (10 points) is on the floor to stretch the defense and Gregory Graves' improved outside shooting will make him dangerous against a lot opponents. Maryland's perimeter defense wasn't as sharp as it could be, but the Mountaineers were going to attack from out there anyway.

4. Mount St. Mary's will be fine ... as soon as it gets done with the first four games of its schedule. Mount coach Jamion Christian front-loaded his schedule this year, with the Mountaineers facing Maryland, Ohio State, Washington and Gonzaga in a nine-day span to open the year. Once clear of that, look for the Mount to settle in for a strong season. It is a capable offensive team that was quietly quite strong on defense in league play. This won't be a top-100 win for Maryland --- the NEC is not exactly a hotbed of great RPI teams --- but Mount St. Mary's could easily land in the top 150 by year's end.

The D.C./Baltimore (and beyond) 2015-16 college basketball schedule

The college basketball season commences Friday, just a little less than four months until Selection Sunday. 

Need something to help plan all that time? Here's a rundown of everyone in the Washington and Baltimore areas, including a few schools of note located well into Virginia.

Nov. 13

Coppin State at Eastern Kentucky, 7
Colgate at George Mason, 7
Lafayette at George Washington, 7
Mount St. Mary’s at Maryland, 7
Howard at Massachusetts, 7
James Madison at Richmond, 7
Morgan State at Virginia, 7
Prairie View at Virginia Commonwealth, 7
Tennessee State at Loyola, 7:30
Maryland-Eastern Shore at Kansas State, 8
American at Rhode Island, 8
UMBC at Wake Forest, 8
Florida at Navy, 9:30

Nov. 14

Radford at Georgetown, noon
Towson at La Salle, 3
Alabama State at Virginia Tech, 7

Nov. 15

Mount St. Mary’s at Ohio State, noon
Howard at Rutgers, 4
Coppin State at Iowa, 5
Stetson at Richmond, 5
Maryland-Eastern Shore at Missouri, 6

Takeaways from Drexel-Towson

TOWSON, Md. --- A few things worth mentioning from Towson's 55-41 loss to Drexel on Thursday ...

1. Towson isn't beating anyone if it doesn't get scoring from Four McGlynn and Timajh Parker-Rivera. This was already fairly obvious, and it was a wonder the Tigers (8-8, 1-2 CAA) outlasted Elon on Monday when McGlynn struggled.

But McGlynn remained ensconced in a slump, scoring only four points and shooting 1 of 9 from the floor against the Dragons (3-11, 1-2). Parker-Rivera played 27 quiet minutes, managing three rebounds and two missed shots for his trouble.

"You hope to get more than four points and three rebounds out of them in a big conference game," coach Pat Skerry said. "When that happens, it's a little bit like reaching into a Planters mixed bag of nuts. You never know what you're getting now."

That problem permeates the rest of his roster. The Tigers got useful days out of John Davis and Walter Foster, and Alex Gavrilovic was fine despite a couple turnovers. But Towson has so few consistent pieces that it's hard to anticipate what it will get on a nightly basis.

2. Drexel exploited mismatches on the perimeter repeatedly in the second half. The Dragons don't have a ton of options at this stage, so they were bound to go four-out, one-in at various stages. But it's what worked best, and Towson stuck with a lineup that usually featured two of Foster, Gavrilovic and Parker-Rivera (they combined for 76 minutes).

The Dragons consistently found the guard-vs.-big option toward the end of the shot clock in the second half, and then did so again a couple times when Towson switched to zone in the final six minutes. Either way, Drexel usually got a layup out of the bargain.

"What we did was we put Parker on statistically their lowest scorer," Skerry said. "We weren't going to put him on Lee or Allen. Those are two all-conference players. We'll do the exact same thing up there."

3. Ball-handling did in Towson yet again. The Tigers had eight giveaways after the break, and were on the wrong end of a 13-0 margin in points off turnovers. Of the 10 players who saw time, only one (Byron Hawkins) had more assists than turnovers.

It's not a problem easily fixed, and one unlikely to be rectified before the end of this season. But if there's a single thing holding the Tigers back from a push into the top half of the CAA, ball-handling probably slightly edges out shooting at this stage as the team's biggest headache.

--- Patrick Stevens

A brief history of a double dose of ranked home teams inside the Beltway in the 21st century

National rankings aren't particularly meaningful in the present. They are things for fans to get excited about, and for a program that's wallowed in mediocrity (or worse) for a long while, it's something to tout.

But ultimately, they don't matter on the floor, and they don't matter to the NCAA tournament selection committee.

Years down the road, though, they provide a wonderful way of dividing things up to find "first time since ..." statistics. And those, while not especially meaningful either, can provide mild entertainment on a slow day.

Hence this post. Maryland is ranked No. 12 nationally and plays host to Minnesota on Saturday. Georgetown is No. 25 (for now, anyway, after its loss to Xavier on Wednesday) and welcomes Creighton to the Verizon Center on Saturday.

It's the first time in more than five years both teams will play home games as ranked teams on the same day.

It's the first time in almost eight years (well, 7 years and 10 months, precisely) that both played conference home games as ranked teams on the same day.

And it's only the 12th time since 2000 that two schools located inside the Capital Beltway have played home games as ranked teams on the same day.

The last time three pulled it off? It appears to have never happened. But with George Washington playing a home game on the same day that Georgetown and Maryland do only once this season (Jan. 17) and the Colonials stuck at seven points in the AP poll, that occurrence will probably have to wait for another year.

The full list of days when two ranked teams played at home inside the Capital Beltway this century:

Nov. 17, 2009

No. 19 Georgetown over Temple 46-45
No. 25 Maryland over Fairfield 71-42

March 3, 2007

No. 9 Georgetown over Connecticut  59-46
No. 24 Maryland over N.C. State 79-59

Feb. 22, 2006

No. 6 George Washington over La Salle 77-65
No. 23 Georgetown over Rutgers 66-50

Feb. 5, 2006

No. 10 George Washington over Richmond 80-55
No. 17 Georgetown over Pitt 61-58

Jan. 28, 2006

No. 14 George Washington over Rhode Island 81-62
No. 21 Georgetown over Cincinnati 76-57

Nov. 30, 2005

No. 19 George Washington over St. Francis (Pa.) 85-68
No. 23 Maryland over Minnesota 83-66

Nov. 24, 2001

No. 6 Maryland over Delaware State 77-53
No. 16 Georgetown over Towson 91-40

Feb. 24, 2001

No. 20 Maryland over Oklahoma 68-60
No. 21 Georgetown over Syracuse 72-61

Jan. 27, 2001

Duke over No. 8 Maryland 98-96
Notre Dame over No. 10 Georgetown 78-71

Jan. 10, 2001

No. 12 Georgetown over Morgan State 86-68
North Carolina over No. 14 Maryland 86-83

Jan. 6, 2001

No. 17 Maryland over Georgia Tech 93-80
No. 19 Georgetown over Seton Hall 78-66

Towson's turnover troubles show no signs of abating

How does a team grab nearly two-thirds of its offensive rebounding possibilities, shoot 57.4 percent from the floor and still lose?

Towson knows the answer to that basketball riddle. There's really only one way it could happen.

The Tigers' 25 turnovers contributed to a second-half meltdown in Monday's 85-84 loss to Fairleigh Dickinson at SECU Arena, a befuddling display of dreadful ballhandling for a team that has struggled with turnovers all season.

"I don't recall doing that badly my first year," said coach Pat Skerry, referring to the 1-31 team he piloted in 2011-12. "We have some work to do. We just can't take care of the ball. It's absolutely embarrassing."

It was the fifth consecutive loss for Towson (7-6), which led by as many as 16 early in the second half against the Knights (5-6). 

Towson's problems are obvious. It doesn't have an established point guard. And, besides Four McGlynn, it doesn't have capable outside shooters.

But it especially doesn't have an established point guard.

Monday wasn't particularly rough for freshman Byron Hawkins, who had just two turnovers in 23 foul-plagued minutes. Junior college transfer Josh Ivory barely got off the bench, tossing a giveaway into his two-minute cameo late in the second half.

McGlynn handled the ball for a good chunk of the night, but he's not nearly as good as a point guard as he is as a shooter. He had six turnovers, one of five Towson players to notch at least three.

"I mean, who didn't turn it over?" Skerry asked.

Skerry tried using timeouts. He tried letting his team play through mistakes.

And by the time Fairleigh Dickinson had 20 points off turnovers in the second half alone, Towson needed an Eddie Keith II free throw just to force overtime.

"What do you tell them? Don't turn it over," Skerry said. "So then what you do? You work on dribbling, passing, catching every day. If that can't carry over when the other team's here and they put the scoreboard on, then you ask 'Do I have the right guys?' I'm not trying to hurt anybody's feelings, but you just can't turn the ball over. I don't know what else to say."

The Tigers rank 327th nationally in turnover percentage according to KenPom.com, a miserable figure that helps offset strengths on the offensive glass (fourth nationally in offensive rebounding percentage) and getting to the foul line (first in free throw rate).

But unless someone who can take care of the ball emerges, Towson's run through the CAA (however limited much of the league is) will be just as bumpy as Monday's experience.

"I like the group," Skerry said. "They practice hard. We're not mentally tough enough. We're not. You don't drop the last two games in the crunch if you have a couple guys to pull you through mentally. That's probably the most alarming to me. I like to coach tough guys. I don't think we're mentally tough."

If that's the case, Skerry's postgame plans couldn't have gone over well.

"We're going to back and watch that," Skerry said. "It'll be like a chainsaw massacre gone wild."

Close to full strength, Maryland wraps up nonconference play at 12-1

Greg Kampe knows a bit about assessing power conference programs. Nevermind that he's spent the last 31 years as the head coach at Oakland, a Detroit in suburban Detroit.

Kampe is the architect of one of the great scheduling philosophies in Division I. The Grizzlies routinely play as many high-level teams as possible, constructing a brutally difficult road schedule that simultaneously pays plenty of bills and routinely places Oakland in the top 50 (and often higher) in nonconference schedule strength.

The Grizzlies, who have faced 27 ranked teams over the last 10 seasons, already met Iowa State, Arizona, Michigan State and Pittsburgh this year. So Kampe's opinion is worth pondering in the wake of Maryland's 72-56 defeat of Oakland on Saturday.

How, then, do the 12-1 Terrapins stack up?

"We think they're really good," Kampe said. "We think they're different than Arizona. They're different than Michigan State. They don't have the physicality that those teams have. But they have finesse and [Jake Layman] can score in multiple ways. [Dez] Wells can score in multiple ways. And they have players who can make plays."

And now, Maryland has more of them than at any point all season.

Saturday marked the first time both Wells and Evan Smotrycz played in the same game since March. Smotrycz missed the first five games this season with a broken foot, then three more with a sprained ankle. Wells, who scored all 10 of his points in the second half, had sat out seven games with a broken wrist before coming off the bench Saturday.

It's debatable Maryland was at full strength against Oakland, especially with Wells acknowledging he wasn't particularly aggressive in the game's early stages. He also didn't need to be, considering Maryland built a a 37-19 halftime lead.

That advantage was built on stingy defense and a few timely 3-pointers, major elements of the same formula that allowed the Terps to survive a month without their best returning player in the lineup. Yet it was also constructed with a different rotation, the closest approximation Maryland's offered yet on how its minutes will be allocated in the coming months.

"It was weird looking down the bench and not seeing anybody hurt," Layman said. "It's great. We have so much firepower on our bench. It's just really exciting to see how good we are and how good we're going to be moving forward.

Clearly, Layman, Wells and Melo Trimble are the centerpieces of this team. How the minutes at shooting guard (and at backup point guard) are divvied up between Jared Nickens, Richaud Pack and Dion Wiley remains to be seen.

Precisely how much Smotrycz ultimately plays, and how willing coach Mark Turgeon is to go with a smaller lineup remains to be seen. Bigs Michal Cekovsky, Damonte Dodd and Jon Graham combined for 41 minutes against Oakland.

"I think today was a peek behind the curtain, but we have a lot more in store," Wells said.

Just how much will be learned soon enough. A trip to Michigan State on Tuesday commences Big Ten play, and Kampe --- and who saw the Spartans, and a few other high-profile programs, already this season --- offered an endorsement of Maryland's potential.

"I think they're different than those teams, but they're a good different," Kampe said. "I think they can make a run for the Big Ten championship. I'm not saying they can win it. I wouldn't do that to Mark. But I think they can make a run for it."

--- Patrick Stevens