Terrapins men’s basketball Twitter erupted Sunday night after the Terps bounced Hawaii, 73-60, to advance to the Sweet 16, a destination the program hasn’t reached in over a decade. Fans and former players took to social media to express their joy about the victory and applaud the current team for their important achievement, and will likely continue to do so over the next few days.
Just don’t expect coach Mark Turgeon’s group to see much of that praise themselves.
“I’ll take their phones,” Turgeon said when asked how him and his team were going to celebrate the win.
“Coach is probably going to take our phones,” added Rasheed Sulaimon, who at least appeared aware of his fate. But the senior guard did come up with other ways in which he and his fellow Terps could enjoy their first two successful steps in the tournament — while at the same time keeping an eye on what’s ahead.
“We’re definitely going to celebrate,” Sulaimon said. “Probably play video games. I’ll probably beat Melo in FIFA and talk trash. But it’s a good feeling. But at the same time, we still have business to take care of, and we got a tough team coming up. So we’re not going to get too crazy.”
“I don’t know about the FIFA part,” Trimble said. “But everything else he said was pretty on point. We’re going to enjoy this win tonight and can’t really do too much. We got a flight tomorrow morning. We’re going to refocus and get ready for Kansas.”
In a change of pace from what they’ve been doing recently, Sulaimon and Trimble sound like they’ll shift from working together on the court in Spokane to taking each other out on the virtual pitch during some rousing matches of the popular soccer video game. But when Thursday rolls around, it’ll again be time for the Terps to come together in hopes of knocking off another opponent, No. 1-seed Kansas.
And, if things go right next weekend, maybe the team will get to experience another week of taken phones, too.
