TALLAHASSEE, Fla.— Coming off a 26-turnover effort that resulted in a 62-53 loss at Clemson on Sunday, you probably came into last night’s game against Florida State looking for some signs of life from the Terrapin men’s basketball team’s offense.
And early on, you probably didn’t find any.
The Terps missed their first five shots and never really turned it around in the first 20 minutes. The shot a respectable 39 percent, but they got to the foul line just twice and turned the ball over seven times. Most notably, the flex offense wasn’t producing the open looks and easy baskets that were a staple of some of the Terps’ dominating ACC performances last month.
Just 10 seconds into the second half, Jordan Williams threw down a dunk. Landon Milbourne followed that by swishing a midrange jumper. And then Eric Hayes buried the Terps’ first three-pointer of the game.
The Terps kept that going, hitting 11 of their first 20 shots to build their lead to as much as nine in the second half.
“We just picked up our intensity as far as running our plays,” Milbourne said. “We trusted in our plays a lot more. The first half we didn’t really run everything through. We got kinda flustered and started going on our own.”
Coach Gary Williams echoed the virtues of patience in his system. The 21st-year coach said that he hopes those adjustments can serve as a turning point for executing the offense.
The second half offense looked much more like the Terp attack in blowout ACC wins last month against N.C. State and Miami.
And impressively, as the Seminoles tried to quicken the pace down the stretch to pull off a comeback win, the Terps largely didn’t bite.
They ran through the offense, utilized the shot clock and made the decisions necessary to escape with a road win.
“We didn’t want to play their game,” Jordan Williams said. “They wanted to run up and down and push us and push us. But at the end of the day, they can’t force us out of our game.”
If the Terps can get on a roll, the Terps’ improved second half effort will be looked to as a turning point. After three lackluster halves in a row, whatever was said at halftime seemed to wake the Terps up.
Landon Milbourne wasn’t specific about what went on at halftime in the Donald L. Tucker Center locker room. But it was clear that coach Gary Williams got his point across.
“We got together as a team and just decided we were going to calm down and run our stuff the way we need to,” Milbourne said.
If they can continue to play that way, those frustrating offensive efforts could be a thing of the past.
Eric Detweiler is The Diamondback’s Terrapin Men’s Basketball Team beat writer. He can be reached at edetweilerdbk@gmail.com. You can follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/edetweiler.