Judging by his comments so far, Terrapin men’s basketball guard Greivis Vasquez has decided to shut up this season.
It’s a big change.
Vasquez has made no mention of winning a national championship, the kind of talk he seemed to casually throw out in the past, though he’s never been on a team with a legitimate shot.
“I think we have enough talent to have a great year, but it’s too early to tell yet [if] we’re gonna get to the Final Four,” Vasquez said at the team’s media day in October.
And he’s taken better measure of his own game, perhaps spurred by a summer of NBA Draft workouts in which he was reportedly too slow to keep up with a deep class of point guards.
“I learned a lot,” Vasquez said. “Now, I know how to do things a lot better for the next time.”
It’s only November, but so far, it’s been a new Vasquez. I already miss the old one.
Sure, the old Vasquez squabbled with reporters, cursed at his own fans and made silly comments about Memphis before the Tigers dismantled the Terps in the second round of the NCAA Tournament last year. But that’s what made him who he was.
Those moments, his emotional outbursts and trademark shimmy after hitting big three-pointers all fueled his game. And for a player carrying so much responsibility, that energy was important.
On his way to leading the Terps to an improbable NCAA Tournament berth last year, he paced the team in seven major statistical categories and cemented his “Wild Child” persona. He’s the “most exciting player in college basketball,” according to a Sports Illustrated ranking of such players earlier this fall. The rest of the guys on that list don’t come close.
Nobody should want that to change.
I’m not condoning all of Vasquez’s behavior last season. There are those who will argue Vasquez’s eccentric style was damaging to his performance, which was reflected by signs of inefficiency in his game.
But his shooting percentage of barely more than 40 percent and average of 2.8 turnovers per game were more products of how much he had to do to win games with a mediocre cast around him.
Vasquez took the contested shots with the shot clock winding down because he had the best chance to make them. Vasquez drove the lane, sometimes when there was no opening, because Terp guards were missing shots and the offense sputtered otherwise.
Although this year’s Terps should be improved, Vasquez shouldn’t lose his aggressive edge, either on or off the court. It’s what kept this team out of the NIT last season. It can only help to have it again.
In the past, he’s let what outsiders say affect him too deeply. Last season’s home win against Georgia Tech, the one in which he cursed at booing Terp fans in the student section, serves as a prime example.
If Vasquez listened to some of the self-proclaimed basketball experts who come out to the Comcast Center, he’d probably never leave the locker room. Last season, it was common to hear fans groan whenever Vasquez launched a three. During the season’s final stretch, when most of those shots started falling and the Terps went from embarrassment to redemption story, those groans grew comical.
Vasquez shouldn’t have to quiet down or take fewer shots for those people. He should adjust his mindset and playing style based on what it will take to win.
If Sean Mosley truly has improved his mid-range jumper, or Eric Hayes is ready to continue his quality late-season play when the Terps start again tomorrow against Charleston Southern, then Vasquez should defer to them at times.
Either way, he shouldn’t abandon the attitude that got him and the Terps to this point, on the edge of the top 25 rankings with a wide-open ACC ahead.
“I think we have a chance to make this season special,” Vasquez said.
He’s right. He just has to be himself.
akraut@umdbk.com
