Tuesday, November 16, 2010

This Year's Terps - A Cavalcade of Point Guards

I know it's only November, but after watching two out of Maryland's three wins so far, this looks like it could be a fun team this year. They've got inside scoring and rebounding from Jordan Williams, who looks to be in much better shape than he was last year, and could also be a year ahead of where Lonny Baxter was as a sophomore in terms of offensive skills. Cliff Tucker is probably their best defender not named Sean Mosley, and might also be the best outside shooter on the team. And then their are the point guards. Senior Adrian Bowie starts and has been solid thus far, but the freshmen behind him on the bench, Pe'Shon Howard (yes, that's actually his first name) and Terrell Stoglin, might both be better players. In fact, I'm betting that Howard starts over Bowie at some point this season. No matter who starts, ball handling shouldn't be the problem that it's been at times over the last few seasons.

Add what could be a deep but young (three more freshmen, one sophomore, one transfer) bench, and, well, we'll see what happens. Something else that's new for a Gary Williams team is its international flavor; one of the freshmen is from Iceland, and the transfer is a skinny Dutch guy. We'll know a lot more about this team once they face a top-five Pittsburgh team on Thursday night at MSG.