Hey folks, hope you are having a happy holiday weekend. Aaron Kraut here, checking in after the Terps’ 72-51 win against Bryant at Comcast Center this afternoon.
More of the same from coach Gary Williams’ team today. Bryant (1-10) is in its first year as a D-I program and clearly didn’t have the talent or athleticism to keep up. The Terps defensive pressure, both in the full court and half court, was too much for the Bulldogs, causing 13 first half turnovers.
At times the Terps struggled with Bryant’s 2-3 zone- the Bulldogs got within nine points with 9:22 left after an 8-0 run. But guard Greivis Vasquez went on a 9-0 run of his own, with three 3-pointers in a two-minute span to lead the Terps (9-2) to a comforable 42-25 lead at halftime.They cruised on from that point.
But it wasn’t all good for the Terps. About midway through the second half Williams looked unhappy with the four bench players he had in the game with Vasquez, who were struggling to score and played an overall sloppy game. He subbed the other four starters in and forward Dave Neal immediately hit a layup to get the offense flowing again. The Terps bench combined for just 8 points.
“The bench should have played a lot better than what we did,” forward Cliff Tucker said. “When you put the bench in they’re supposed to keep up what the starters did…They were playing back in a zone today and that kind of slowed us down- we’re a fast-paced team.”
Williams also was concerned with the rebounding totals- the undersized Bulldogs managed 35 rebounds, the same amount the Terps grabbed.
“The bothersome part is the rebounding,” Williams said. “We have to rebound better than that…we got too many guys that rebounded with one hand and it gets scraped or whatever, it gets loose. We have to be tougher on the glass in the future, so we’ll work with that starting tomorrow.”
Next up: Elon on Tuesday night. Only three more games until the long awaited conference-opener against Georgia Tech on Jan. 10, when we will see what this team is truly made of.
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