As first reported by TerrapinTimes.com, the men’s basketball team has landed a verbal commitment from 2010 guard Terrence Ross.

Ross, originally from Oregon, transferred to Montrose Christian High School in Rockville before last season to “pursue his basketball career and improve his academic standing.”

The 6-foot-5 Ross is a four-star prospect according to Rivals.com, ranked as the 31st best player in Rivals’ top 150 list for the class of 2010 and the No. 10-ranked shooting guard.

If Ross’ commitment holds up it’ll be a big get for coach Gary Williams, but there’s a lot of time between now and the point that Ross would actually show up on this campus. I’m going to go ahead and post this pretty cool but pretty much meaningless highlight anyway.

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So it’s official. Xavier Henry, a five-star recruit from Putnam City High School (Oklahoma City), has committed to play for Bill Self and the Kansas Jayhawks next season.

Who, you might ask if you don’t obsessively follow college basketball recruiting, is Xavier Henry and why is this appearing on Terrapin Trail? It’s true that Henry was never considering the Terps as a potential suitor, but there has been speculation galore across the twitscape that, should Henry choose the Jayhawks, Lance Stephenson, another five-star recruit who is also considering Kansas along with St. John’s and the Terps, would be heading somewhere other than Lawrence, Kan.

That’s the good news.  The bad news is that Stephenson, who hails from New York City, is likely to choose St. John’s, according to Jerry Meyer of Rivals.com, a national recruiting website.

Throughout Stephenson’s recruitment, Kansas had been considered the favorite with St. John’s a darkhorse candidate. The Terps entered the running out of nowhere a few months ago, but they were never considered a serious competitor to Kansas. Then John Calipari left Memphis for Kentucky, causing several of his top recruits to rescind their commitments. Henry was one of them, and now that he has landed at Kansas, there is question as to whether Stephenson would want to compete for playing time on a national title contender.

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Spring is the season of change, and that apparently also applies to the jersey numbers of several Terrapin football players.

Thirteen Terps are wearing different numbers during spring practice than they wore last fall, and some of the more prominent numbers from last year’s team have new owners.

Interestly, players with new numbers gave a wide range of responses regarding why they made the switch.

Running back Davin Meggett took perhaps the most-loaded number when he switched from No. 41 last season to Darrius Heyward Bey’s old No. 8 this season, but the sophomore said his number really doesn’t mean anything to him.

Meggett said he changed his number every year in high school “just to aggravate people,” and he changed to No. 8 this year because it was one of the few numbers still available.

“All the other skill players weren’t going to take it because of Darrius,” Meggett said. “I was like ‘I can take it. I’ll take it.’”

On the other hand, tight end Devonte Campbell switched from No. 86 last season to Dave Philistin’s old No. 34, and his new number means a lot to him.

Campbell wore No. 34 throughout high school, when he only started playing football in his freshman year. His number originated during his youth basketball days, when he started wearing the number to honor his favorite player Shaquille O’Neal.

“I used the No. 34 my junior year [of high school] to get myself established and get myself put out there as a DI athlete,” Campbell said. “Hopefully it will be my good luck charm in college too.”

Safety Antwine Perez falls somewhere in between Meggett and Campbell in his feelings of sentimality over his new No. 2, which was vacated after last season by cornerback Kevin Barnes.

Perez wore No. 3 in youth football, but switched to No. 15 in high school when his coach wouldn’t allow players to wear jersey numbers with single digits.

Perez shared No. 3 with Christian Varner during his redshirt season in 2007, but wore No. 20 for the Terps last season after LaQuan Williams took No. 3. 

Perez said he wanted a number with a single digit for 2009.

“It’s just something about the whole single digit thing. I don’t know what it is, but guys always try to jump on those numbers real quick,” Perez said. “I guess, you know, it’s the whole fashion thing and everything like that. They’re just very appealing numbers.”

Here’s to hoping coach Ralph Friedgen can keep track of who everybody is.

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For the Terrapin baseball team midweek games are just a way of transitioning from weekend-to-weekend, especially this late in the season with so much on the line in the ACC. Tuesday was no exception as the Terps won a listless game over LaSalle 6-5 that mattered little in the grand scheme of things.

But Wednesday will be different because the Terps will welcome No. 27 George Mason to Shipley Field in a rematch of their March 24 game that George Mason won 6-5 after trailing late. After trailing for the first five innings of the game, the Terps stormed back to take the lead in the top of the sixth inning after a close play at first gave the Terps another chance down 3-2 and they took advantage when Dan Benick grounded a ball through the middle.

The Terps loaded the bases in the eighth with nobody out but only managed to plate one run and that proved costly as the normally reliable Dan Gentzler just could not get the final out, and the Patriots scored three runs with two outs to take the lead 6-5, and the score would remain that way.

In the long run, this game won’t make or break the Terps’ season, just don’t tell coach Terry Rupp that.

“Last time we played them at their place we had them on the hook and we let them get off there at the end,” Rupp said on Monday. “That left a pretty sour taste in our mouths and our guys are gonna be motivated to win that especially from the simple fact that Mason has been playing outstanding ball.”

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