Guard Nick Faust goes up for a layup to close the gap as the Terps almost completed a comeback win during their buzzer-beater loss to George Washington, 77-75, on Dec 8, 2013 at Verizon Center.
Nick Faust concedes that he and his Terrapins men’s basketball teammates have been frustrated with their performance over the past two games, which ended in lopsided defeats at No. 22 Pittsburgh and Florida State. The junior guard, though, isn’t questioning the team’s talent or game plans.
Rather, Faust echoed coach Mark Turgeon’s belief that the Terps have the pieces in place to find success in a jumbled ACC race. So despite the troubling results of late, the Terps (10-7, 2-2 ACC) plan to stick with their schemes entering Wednesday night’s home tilt against Notre Dame (10-6, 1-2).
“You just got to bounce back and stay the course,” Faust said. “We just got to stay the course and believe.”
The Terps’ confidence doesn’t appear to have wavered after losing back-to-back games by at least 20 points for the first time since 2008. But the Terps said they know the system can work, and they know wins will start coming if they simply find consistency.
“We haven’t made shots, other team has been really hot versus us,” forward Evan Smotrycz said Tuesday. “If we come out tomorrow, play ‘D’ and make some shots, we should be OK.”
While the Terps understand their early-season struggles and recent stumbles in conference play have left them with an unappealing postseason resume, they also recognize that there will be opportunities in their ACC schedule to build a stronger case for inclusion in the NCAA tournament.
Typical ACC powers Duke and North Carolina are a combined 2-5 in league play and only two teams in the conference — Pittsburgh and No. 2 Syracuse — remain undefeated in league play.
No team represents the baffling ACC quite as while as the group entering Comcast Center for Wednesday night’s game. The Irish beat Duke on Jan. 4 in South Bend, Ind., but lost their next two games to N.C. State and Georgia Tech, a pair of middling ACC squads.
So the Terps believe they can be in contention to finish near the top of the conference, but as Smotrycz puts it, they “have to get hot.”
“Really the way the league is right now, anybody can beat anybody by 20,” Smotrycz said.
Faust agrees that the muddled ACC has kept the Terps positive and Turgeon contends that the team can compete with anyone in the conference.
The even-keeled coach points to several factors as to why his team isn’t yet in dire straits. The Terps’ only two conference losses, Turgeon said, have come on the road to teams predicted to finish near or in the top half of the conference, the team is still working guard Seth Allen back to full health and they play three of their next four games at home.
“It’s just a two-game slide this early in the season,” Turgeon said. “We got to get better, play better tomorrow night and get back on the plus side in the league.”
Turgeon suggested that part of the Terps offensive struggles of late — they’ve averaged just 60 points in their two-game losing streak — may be credited to poor shot distribution.
Guard Dez Wells and forward Jake Layman, the Terps two leading scorers, have seen a dip in production of late and have had troubling finding open looks. But Turgeon, like his players, isn’t blaming his offensive schemes. If the team executes properly, he said, the offense efficiency will improve.
“If we run our system better and we screen better and we execute better that’s going to help,” Turgeon said. “If we run our system better, then the right guys are going to get shots.”
That’s the message coming out of Comcast Center in advance of Notre Dame’s visit. The Terps are sticking to the system, and Turgeon is sticking with the same players to run it.
But despite his confidence, Turgeon lost sleep because of the Terps’ struggles, and he said the team has taken the recent loses harder than usual. Though the Terps aren’t abandoning their philosophy, they understand the importance of turning things around quickly.
Even Faust, who repeated his desire for the team to “stay the course” several times Tuesday afternoon, said that for the Terps needed to start piling up wins soon if they hope to contend in the ACC and maintain their slim hopes of earning an NCAA tournament berth.
“There’s definitely a sense of urgency going around the team,” Faust said. “It’s time to turn it on now.”
