One might think a lineup with as little size as the Terp men’s basketball team would be perimeter-oriented. But the statistics tell another story.

As a team, Maryland is shooting 30.2 percent from 3-point range, which is good for second to last in the ACC ahead of only lowly Virginia. They are also third from the bottom in the ACC in 3-pointers made per game at 5.3.

Individually the Terps have struggled as well.

Last season Eric Hayes was the team’s best option when they needed a big triple. He attempted 143 triples and made 56 of them, good for 39.2 percent. This season, his 3-point field goal percentage has dipped all the way to 34.1 percent, helped by his 0-5 performance last night that allowed Boston College to come back and eventually win.

Grievis Vazquez has also had his fair share of struggles from long-range. Although his percentage this season (30.7) hasn’t really changed from last season (30.9), he continues to bomb away at an alarming rate. Vasquez is fifth in the ACC in three-pointers attempted with 114. The lowest percentage from behind the arc among the players who have taken more 3-pointers than Vazquez is 36.1 percent from Toney Douglas of Florida State.

The team’s best three point shooter this year has been Dave Neal, who is shooting 36.4% on 44 attempts. It’s not a good thing when your best 3-point shooter is also your starting center.

I swear there is a point to all of these numbers.

The point is that most teams that are successful achieve a balance between their inside and outside game. The Terps haven’t achieved that balance mainly because they really haven’t found their identity offensively.

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Well, apparently Boston College didn’t need Tyrese Rice’s scoring in the second half. The senior guard entered the period with three fouls and his team down 11, but defensive breakdowns, turnovers and missed opportunities doomed the Terps in a 76-67 loss. Rice, one of the ACC’s leading scorers at 18.4 points per game, Rice finished the game with only 10 points, but most of those came on free throws in the closing minutes as the Terps were forced to foul with the game slipping away.

Rice couldn’t be found for the first 39 minutes, but he made perhaps the game’s biggest play with little more than a minute to go. Down by six, the Terps still had time to mount a comeback when Rice swooped in from behind and stole the ball from gaurd Adrian Bowie. Rice was quickly fouled and made one of two free throws, putting the game out of reach for a Terps team that in the second half was stonewalled by the three-point line.

Corralled all game by Bowie, Greivis Vasquez and Sean Mosley, Rice instead played the role of facilitator, dishing out six assists while four of his teammates scored in double figures.

Conversely, Vasquez found himself playing both the role of scorer and passer in the second half. After aggressive first halves from Landon Milbourne and Bowie, both players found points harder to come by in the second period, leaving Vasquez to create for himself. The junior guard finished with 18 points and six assists, both team highs, and made all three of his team’s three-point field goals. But Vasquez also missed six shots from long range, and his teammates missed nine more, which killed the Terps in the closing minutes when they needed quick points but couldn’t hit anything from anywhere.

With the game out of reach, a dejected Vasquez left the game in the waning moments and buried his head inside his jersey. He and the Terps will need to rebound from two uniquely-dispiriting losses by the time they suit up against Miami this Saturday at Comcast Center. The Terps played at Miami earlier this season, losing 62-60.

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About the only thing a 41-point loss is good for is motivation. Back in front of their home crowd, the Terps came out with a lot of energy and lead Boston College 40-29 at halftime. A few observations from the first half:

• Landon Milbourne leads the Terps with 12 points, at least six of which have come on midrange jumpshots. The junior forward’s jumper has always been inconsistent, and it isn’t rare for him to get several open looks every game. So far he’s shooting 5-for-10 from the field, and his confidence seems to be higher after being the team’s only scoring threat against the Blue Devils.
• Adrian Bowie has been crazy-active, especially on the boards and leads the team with four. He jumpstarted the team’s scoring early with a few drives into the lane.
• Eric Hayes can’t catch a break. Hayes came into the season as the team’s best long-distance shooter, and while the junior guard is second on the team in three-point shooting percentage (.364) – behind starting center Dave Neal(.381) – he has struggled recently. So far tonight, he’s gone 0-for-3 from deep, with all three shots rimming out. If he can get a few of those to drop through in the second half, it would give the Terps a big boost.
• As always, Dino Gregory and Sean Mosley have given the Terps good energy off the bench. Gregory has been active on the boards, snatching three, and drew a charge midway through the first half and drew hearty applause from the crowd. Mosley has continued his solid defense and hustle play.
• Perhaps most critical to the second half is Tyrese Rice’s three fouls. The Eagles will need Rice’s scoring in order to come back, so he cannot afford to get a fourth foul early in the second half.

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Coming off Saturday’s disaster in Durham, N.C., the Terrapins men’s basketball team will try and get back on track tonight against Boston College, which after defeating then-No. 1 North Carolina  on Jan. 4 turned around and lost by 12 points on their home floor to Harvard. But after losing their next three, the Eagles have won their last two games against Georgia Tech and N.C. State.

The Eagles are led by senior gaurd Tyrese Rice, one of the best offensive players in the ACC. Rice is averaging 18.4 points, 5.8 assists and 3.9 rebounds per game. He is also shooting .375 from three-point range.

The Terps need someone to step up as a consistent compliment to leading scorer Greivis Vasquez, who is coming off one of his worst career games against Duke, in which he scored four points on 2-of-10 shooting after declaring that Cameron Indoor Stadium was “my house.” Landon Milbourne is beginning to emerge as that second threat, and has scored 17 or more points in his last three games, including 19 against the Blue Devils, 14 more than any other teammate.

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Freshman forward Jin Soo Kim was declared academically ineligible today. Kim, for whom English is a second language, will be allowed to practice with the team for the remainder of the season, but will not play in any more games, beginning with tonight’s contest against Boston College.

“Jin Soo worked hard to try and be a part of the university and our team,” said Williams in a press release. “He will continue to work hard academically and in practice.”

Kim has played in 15 of the Terrapins’ 19 games this season, averaging 1.7 points and 1.2 rebounds in 6.8 minutes per. He became ineligible this past Monday, at the start of the Spring 2009 semester.

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For someone who just suffered his most lopsided loss since taking over the Terrapin men’s basketball program, Gary Williams was relatively upbeat and positive Monday afternoon at his scheduled media availability.

No players were made available to try to defend themselves, and Williams tried to downplay the significance of the Terps’ 85-44 loss at Duke on Saturday, saying the Terps need to be confident they can win Tuesday night against Boston College (7:30 tip at Comcast/on ESPN2).

“We’re 2-3 [in the ACC] right now, but we’ve lost to the No. 1 team in the country on their court, we’ve lost in overtime and we’ve lost by two points,” Williams said. “It’s not like we played poorly until the Duke game Saturday. We played pretty well on the road I thought the first two road games.”

Gary also addressed the recent struggles of guard Greivis Vasquez, who has averaged 11.4 points per game in the first five ACC games after averaging 18.1 ppg in 14 non-conference games.

Vasquez had one of his worst games of his career at Duke on Saturday after he said in the days leading up to the game that Cameron Indoor Stadium was “my house.”

“I think all shooters go through periods during their career–four-year career–where you don’t shoot particularly well,” Williams said. “I think it might be more glaring in Greivis’ case because he’s had success his first two years in the program.

“He’s working on it. He’s not the type of person who just lets it go.”

Williams also put a positive spin on an interesting question posed to him about whether the recent frequent turnover of some of Williams’ assistant coaches has had a negative effect on recruiting efforts.

Williams praised himself for grooming several assistants who have taken head coaching jobs elsewhere, said he has already signed “two players who will be in the Top 50 in the country next year,”and said losing Gus Gilchrist and Tyree Evans before the season “wasn’t my fault.”

We’ll assume those Top 50 recruits he mentioned are Jordan Williams and James Padgett–the only two players the Terps have signed–even though those rankings may be a bit of a stretch.

Gary (as in not Jordan) Williams concluded by talking about how tough he expects BC guard Tyrese Rice to be tomorrow night.

It should be interesting to see Tuesday how the Terps–and the fans–respond to Saturday’s debacle. Gary doesn’t seem too worried about it.

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North Carolina coach Sylvia Hatchell probably put it best after Sunday’s 77-71 loss to the Terps. Her team shot better from the field (42 percent to 38 percent), generated 24 points off of 20 Terp turnovers and dominated the bench scoring (42-8). All those are normally solid indicators of a winning result, but not on Sunday night.

The two factors that ended up mattering most, outside of a combined 45 points from Terp seniors Kristi Toliver and Marissa Coleman, were rebounding and officiating. The Terps outrebounded the Tar Heels 51-38. The Tar Heels were whistled for 23 fouls, the Terps just nine. The Terps hit 20-of-28 free throws, which allowed them to stay within reach of Carolina in the first half and take control of the game in the second.

Hatchell wasn’t happy with the foul disparity- she drew a technical after star forward Rashanda McCants fouled out. Were the zebras particularly one-sided last night? The foul totals would indicate that, but other than one or two ticky-tack calls on McCants and fellow forward Jessica Breland, I’m not so sure.

Would the No. 12 Terps (16-3, 4-1 ACC) get the same calls fighting for rebounds down low at Chapel Hill or at Cameron Indoor? I don’t think so, but the Terps legitimately deserved to win that game. To her credit, Hatchell recognized that in the postgame press conference, and was clearly trying to avoid getting into specific issues she had with the refs.

Look for my second-day story on the Terps’ rebounding prowess in Tuesday’s The Diamondback. Also a heads up for any big women’s college basketball fans out there. Tonight on ESPN2 at 7:30 No. 7 Louisville travels to face No. 1 and undefeated Connecticut.

Why might this be interesting? Other than the fact that Connecticut is clearly head and shoulders above the rest of the country (UCONN beat UNC 88-58 at the Dean Dome just a week ago), Louisville is coached by Jeff Walz, who was Terp coach Brenda Frese’s top assistant during the 2006 national champion season. Walz has quickly made Louisville into  a national contender. Are they just as good or even better than this current Terps squad?

You never know, maybe the two will meet down the road in March.

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Women’s basketball beat writer Aaron Kraut here with some pregame notes before tonight’s Terps-Tar Heels nationally televised (ESPN2) game at the Comcast Center.

It’s still only late January and the Terps (15-3, 3-1 ACC) are in no trouble of missing the NCAA tournament or falling out of the Top 25 rankings, despite early-season upsets to TCU and Pitt. But tonight is important. Other than now unranked Purdue, the Terps haven’t had one particularly impressive win.

North Carolina would be that win. The Tar Heels have lost two in a row after No. 1 UCONN beat them by 30 in Chapel Hill and Georgia Tech pulled off a 66-62 upset in Atlanta on Thursday night.

Plus, with a trip to No. 16 Virginia on Friday, the Terps could be staring a 3-3 conference record in the face with a loss tonight. One of the issues coach Brenda Frese’s team will have to contend with is Carolina’s depth. The Tar Heels have 15 players on their roster to the Terps’ 10. Carolina has nine players who average over 10 minutes per game and none who average more than 28.

All five Terp starters (assuming guard Marah Strickland starts over Sa’de Wiley-Gatewood) on the other hand average over 25 mpg.

The Tar Heels are wearing their pink uniforms- the Terps pink warm-up shirts- to honor former N.C. State coach Kay Yow, who died yesterday after an on and off again 21-year bought with breast cancer. Check out the full game recap story tomorrow in The Diamondback.

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