Hard to win when you turn the ball over 26 times and shoot 35% from the floor. In spite of that Maryland had a very good chance to come away from Clemson with a win over a very vulnerable road opponent. The Tigers were ripe for the picking and hardly look anything like a team headed for the NCAA tournament. They scored 26 of their 62 points off Maryland turnovers and grabbed 20 offensive rebounds. Without those Clemson doesn't have much of a chance to win.
The three seniors were perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the game. Vasquez had his worst game of the season with almost as many turnovers (9) as points (10) and an all around awful floor game. Hayes did his share with 5 turnovers and some tepid defense while Milbourne was a virtual non-factor with 3 points on 1/8 shooting. You would expect more from seniors with so much experience even if Littlejohn has become a tough place to play. Good thing Jordan Williams decided to give notice that he will be a factor in the ACC in coming years with a very good 13 point 13 rebounds double-double.
The bench didn't offer much either as Adrian Bowie, Cliff Tucker and Dino Gregory who had more combined fouls and turnovers, ten, than points, eight. Gregory had four fouls, three turnovers and just three rebounds to go with four points.
Road wins are tough to come by in the conference this season and there is no reason to panic at a loss to Clemson. No team in the league would win a road game with 26 turnovers. The fact that Maryland still had a chance to win the game is a positive. I doubt Hayes and Vasquez will play that poorly again this year. The most disappointing aspect was that the team had most of last week to prepare for this game, after playing at home on Tuesday and did a very poor job, from the coaching staff on down. Everyone knows what Clemson likes to do with their press and on defense and yet Maryland looked befuddled and the guards seemed to lose their poise. They need to throw out the gameplan and start over for when Clemson returns to College Park.
I think Florida State is a better team than Clemson so the Terps need to get back to their play of the previous four games by the time they roll into Tallahassee.
