Although it followed a pair of uplifting victories, the 85-69 home loss Sunday to slumping N.C. State occurred too close to the Terrapins’ treacherous two-game tango in North Carolina to be dismissed as simply an off game.
The Terps have lost three of their past four ACC contests, each by at least 15 points. Defeats on the road against national powers North Carolina and Wake Forest could be easily explained, but not the home loss to the Wolfpack — a game in which the Terps mustered only five first-half field goals and trailed by 28 points against a team that had lost five of its past six.
“I’m concerned, obviously,” men’s basketball coach Gary Williams said. “I thought that was a winnable game. We’re playing at home. State’s had some tough times. We didn’t show up ready to attack a good team. … I thought after two wins, we’d be ready to go and be fired up.”
Instead, the Terps (11-5, 2-3 ACC) sit at the crux of their season. After seemingly moving on from a turbulent start to the New Year — which included a 34-point loss at North Carolina and a less lopsided but no less deflating defeat at Wake Forest capped with a publicized spat between Williams and point guard John Gilchrist — the team has dug another hole for itself.
Wins over upstart Temple and ACC rival Virginia did much to buoy spirits, but an uninspired first half against the Wolfpack showed the team is still searching for consistency.
“I don’t know what happened tonight,” Gilchrist said after the loss. “We were just standing around at the beginning of the game. I guess everybody was just waiting for somebody else to make a play, and it just didn’t come that easily.”
Slow starts and standing around have become a trend through almost a third of the ACC season. The Terps have trailed at halftime in their past four conference games.
“That’s one of our downfalls,” junior guard Chris McCray said. “We don’t really start fighting until we get down by 20, then most of the time it’s too late — especially against a good team like N.C. State.”
There is no relief on the remainder of the schedule. Three of their next four games are on the road. The lone game at Comcast in that stretch is a bout with No. 22 Georgia Tech.
But the team has been in this position before — about this time a year ago. Through their first 16 games last season, the Terps had an identical 11-5, 2-3 record. It took that team most of the season to find a rhythm.
It could have been expected this team would progress more quickly after that experience, but aside from the matching records the Terps aren’t the same team they were last season.
Sophomore D.J. Strawberry, the squad’s top defensive guard, is lost for the season with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee — the injury was sustained in practice last week. Strawberry had averaged 21.4 minutes per game, while contributing 7.1 points per contest.
His void — a damaging blow to a team struggling defensively — puts the onus on starting guard Chris McCray to increase his defensive presence and reserve guards Mike Jones and Sterling Ledbetter to provide solid minutes off the bench.
Jones recently showed the promise that made him a McDonald’s All-American out of high school, hitting four 3-pointers and scoring a season-high 21 points off the bench against Temple. But as has been the case throughout his Terp career, the sophomore’s minutes have continued to fluctuate. He played less than 15 in each of the two games since his breakout performance.
Ledbetter, a junior college transfer, has finally worked his way into the rotation after a series of setbacks, including a slight calf tear that cost him much of the first half of the season.
Gilchrist, who was criticized by Williams in an ESPN.com article that said he needed to better involve his teammates, has taken his coach’s words to heart. Although he said he never read the story, the two smoothed out their differences. Gilchrist, the team’s most consistent scoring option the past season and a half, has since been less aggressive offensively, taking a pass-first approach to running the offense.
And in that time, junior forward Nik Caner-Medley has asserted himself offensively to a level well above his production last season. In the past four games, he averaged 24 points and eight rebounds. He had a career-high 35 against Temple.
“I think it’s been an all-year thing for Nik, but he’s been more aggressive and tougher out there on the court. That’s what we need as a team,” Williams said.
Sophomore center Will Bowers is among the team’s most improved players. He, along with freshman forward James Gist, have provided much-needed minutes off the bench as the team’s starting post players — Travis Garrison and Ekene Ibekwe — have struggled with foul trouble against ACC competition.
With 11 games remaining in the regular season, Gilchrist said he isn’t concerned about the team’s recent struggles because the Terps remain a work in progress.
“Anybody who has a winning mentality takes it game to game. You win a game, you’re happy. You lose a game, next game. You got to put this stuff behind you,” he said. “The main focus is to come out, play hard and win games so we can go to the tournament. We’re just trying to make it to the tournament. By the time we hit our stride at tournament time, we’re a tough team, but right now we still have guys growing. We’re still growing together as a team. It’s a lot of things that we have to work on, but it can’t come overnight.
