Seth Allen
Attrition and change were to be expected after the Terrapins men’s basketball team’s season. A plodding 17-15 record, another NCAA tournament absence and all-around disappointment called for it.
So when guard Nick Faust, center Shaquille Cleare and guard Roddy Peters all received releases to transfer last month — in addition to assistant coach Scott Spinelli taking a job at Boston College — it seemed like the change the Terps needed. With the incoming recruiting class boasting a wealth of talent, the Terps appeared to be swapping out ill-fitting parts for better ones.
Anytime a large number of players leave a team, it’s a tough pill to swallow, but still, things felt OK in College Park.
After guard Seth Allen was given his release to transfer Friday, though, things took on a different tone, and it’s concerning.
The impact of Allen’s transfer behind the scenes is tough to judge. We don’t know what exactly is happening in the locker room, and we don’t know the exact sequence of events that led to Allen’s transfer. All we know for sure is coach Mark Turgeon’s first commit — one who relished that label — is leaving the program for good, and in any fashion, that’s not a good look.
But what is clear is Allen’s impact on the court will be sorely missed.
After he returned from a broken foot that sidelined him through the season’s first 12 games, Allen was arguably the Terps’ most fun player to watch and one of their most dynamic threats. It seemed as though it would be hard for him to top his 32-point outburst against Florida State on Feb. 8.
But he scored the first five points in overtime to lift the Terps to a 75-69 win over then-No. 5 Virginia in the final ACC game at Comcast Center as part of a game-high 20 points. And a few days later, his 13 first-half points against Florida State in the ACC tournament helped keep the Terps in the game after a sluggish 20 minutes in their heartbreaking season-ending loss.
Allen, along with guard Dez Wells, had the rare ability to take over a game, and his outside shooting gave the Terps another threat to stretch opposing defenses. When Allen was at the top of his game, the Terps were more dangerous.
So from a strictly Xs and Os standpoint, the transfer hurts.
The Terps, though, appear to have circled the wagons before moving on. Numerous players took to Twitter to voice their support for the program moving forward. Turgeon, who tweeted once during the season (congratulating Brenda Frese, Terps women’s basketball coach, on her 300th win in College Park) posted “‘Adversity only visits the strong but takes up residency with the weak’” Friday evening, a variation of a quote from motivational speaker and former LSU men’s basketball coach Dale Brown.
Then he tweeted, “I’ll miss the guys leaving, but I love the commitment of our returning players and the class we have coming in #TerpNation.”
Forward Jake Layman, another sparse tweeter who didn’t post at all during the regular season, wrote, “Excited for whats to come next. Surrounded by a bunch of guys and a great staff that want to work hard to reach 1 common goal” and “-This program cares so much about all of the players and i know were going to have a great season coming up.”
Other players more active on Twitter, such as Wells (“Stay strong & committed Terp fans, Maryland basketball will rise”), forward Evan Smotrycz (“Thanks to all the fans for sticking with us — we are most definitely on the right track!”) and guard Varun Ram (“I love my team!!”), and incoming guards Melo Trimble and Dion Wiley also chimed in.
Tweets can be seen as meaningless, empty gestures, but silence would be more uncomfortable. It’s been a tumultuous seven months for the Terps, and any reason for optimism is something to hold on to moving forward.
Allen’s transfer is another unexpected twist in a year that’s featured plenty of them. There’s no denying the Terps are worse off without Allen, and even with the highly touted Trimble entering the mix, there’s quite a void to fill.
When one of the top returning options on a team transfers, it’s never good. Next season’s Terps are going to be far different what fans expected, and the level of attrition is unprecedented in College Park.
It’s discouraging, but as with most things surrounding the Terps right now, time will tell the real impact of Allen’s decision.
