Maryland vs. Illinois

The ACC-Big Ten Challenge is one of those things that seems like a really good idea on paper. They're consistently two of the top basketball conferences in the country, and both have strongly partisan fans who will argue for the superiority of their conference over all others. Matching them up in the early season seems like a great way to provide some good early-season games, and settle some fan arguments.

Of course, the execution has left something to be desired-- the ACC has won the Challenge every year, and the overall record isn't terribly close-- I think the graphic they put up last night had it as 40-24 in favor of the ACC. As Dave sez, it's not much of a challenge if one side always wins...

This is not to say that it hasn't produced some great individual games. Three of the seven games Maryland has played in the Challenge have gone to overtime, and this year's match-up against Illinois looked to be a good test for the young Terps. Both teams are trying to replace key players from last year's team, and both teams came into this game missing one interior player. Plus, Illinois came into the game with a 51-game winning streak against non-conference opponents at home. Granted, that includes rather a lot of wins against "directional schools," but there are a few quality opponents in there, like North Carolina a few years ago.

Maryland jumped out to a big lead in the first half, behind hot shooting from gunner Mike Jones, and gave up the lead in the second half when he went cold. Illinois went up by five in the middle of the second half, before freshman guard Greivis Vasquez took over, hitting long shots, making defensive plays, and feeding Bambale Osby (with the 'fro in full effect) for a lay-up, and put Maryland back on top, where they hung on to win 72-66. And there was much rejoicing.

Jeremy Gold's delirious ravings aside, what do we really learn from this? Well, it's certainly a good sign that a young team was able to go on the road and win on a hostile court. They showed a lot of heart, coming back after giving up the big lead. There are still some troubling spots, though:

My personal background in basketball is as an inside player, so I tend to look at what the big men are doing, and the Maryland big men were little more than adequate. Illinois is not what you'd call a dominating team inside, and they outrebounded Maryland 39-29, including an unforgivable 19-8 on the offensive end. To put that in perspective, Maryland got only two more rebounds of Illinois shots than the Illini did. That won't fly in the ACC-- Maryland's big men have got to get better.

On a more fundamental level, all of the big men have the exact same flaw on defense: They all basically concede possession of the ball to their opponent, and try to make up for it by blocking shots. This works better than it should for Ekene Ibekwe, who has a real talent for shot-blocking, but watching Will Bowers play the same way would be funny if it weren't pathetic. They need to contest the entry passes more, and do a better job of denying the opposing big men post position.

The guard play has been great, but if they play the way they played last night, Tyler Hansbrough is going to score eighty on them.

I don't want to be all doom and gloom, here. As I said, the fact that they managed to come back on the road after losing a big lead shows a lot of character, and the guards really did look good. You can cover a lot of post weakness with good guard play, particularly on the defensive end-- if you can keep the opposing guards rattled, you can keep them from getting the ball to the big men in scoring position. I am trying to keep a realistic perspective here, though, and the fact is, the current post play worries me.

It's early in a long season, though, and there's time to fix some of the problems. And for the moment, it's good to have a quality win in the early season.

As for the overall Challenge, after last night's games, the ACC leads 4-2, with five games scheduled for tonight. The Big Ten has an uphill road if they're going to eke out their first victory.