Another future opponent thread.
Watched the 2nd half of this game (ESPNU). I intended to write a bunch about Maryland, but most of my notes were about VCU, since they won the game convincingly: 85-76.
Here’s why: VCU plays a LOT like we do.
They have a great group of guards, including PG Eric Maynor (may remember him from the Duke game), and Shuler.
Maynor is a 6’2ish, speedy dribble penetrator who can get to the hoop with ease. Quite frankly, he reminds me of what Gerrity has been hyped to be. He is a floor general and an absolute gamer. Bigger schools backed off of him because he isnt a great jump shooter, which was stupid. He does everything else well.
Shuler is their Leemire, except he’s bigger. He was PotG w/ 30 pts, including 6/11 from outside.
They also have a GOONJ! Well kinda - his name is NDongo.
Their defense is highly reminiscent of ours, although they dont have a Coley. They create points off of turnovers the same way we do.
They are not exceptionally big inside, and Maryland exploited that, especially with Osby (aka the [I]Fro fo sho[/I]) who they brought off the bench (he’s a starter, dont let that fool you - big powerful kid with soft touch).
Game flow - Basicly, VCU came out from the start pushing tempo and playing extremely physical (someone alert the thug police. Wake up Muffy and Brice @ the Forest). Maynor penetrated with ease, lots of and1’s and kickouts to Shuler who was on fire himself. VCU built a decent lead.
2nd half, MD switched to a 2-3 zone. Maynor tried to drive on it, but failed miserably. Shuler tried to shoot over it, but went cold (very leemire). VCU’s shot selection started to suffer, and MD came back, taking a lead briefly (like 48-47 if I remember).
[U]Then Coach Grant had Maynor feed the high post[/U], which Maynor did fearlessly with very sharp and fast bounce passes that the big men handled. It wasnt pretty, but VCU started converting. Shuler eventually got hot again, so MD extended the zone, which just opened things up for Maynor again. And VCU turned up the full court defense, and got some more conversions on takeaways. 7 pt lead @ the 5 minute mark. Maryland’s Vasquez got rattled and made some really bad passes, especially in the closing 2 minutes.
I think the key is that MD will probably play man on us to start unless the book is out on us. If we have the same success, they will switch to zone and they will be very good at it, because they are big like IU.
Also, Williams made a peculiar decision to switch back to man in the last 2 minutes. Maynor ate them alive. It means he obviously believes in MD’s man to man to a fault.
On offense, they have a couple of 3pt shooters, but they prefer to work around the basket, and Osby concerns me. Vasquez showed he can get rattled with pressure.
[B][URL=http://scores.espn.go.com/ncb/boxscore?gameId=273360120]Boxscore[/URL][/B]