It’s time for college basketball once again.  A great time of year which all leads to March Madness, in my mind, the most fun time on the sports calender.

I saw the Terps beat Concordia, 75-42, in an exhibtion last night.  Maryland came out with strong intensity on the defensive end, as the Stingers missed their first 13 shots.  But Maryland struggled most of the night on offense, scoring just 26 points in the first half and placing just two in double figures.

One exhibition in no way provides us much info on what this year’s team can achieve.  Maryland has four key players returning in Vasquez, Hayes, Gist and Osby and 6 true freshmen all looking for playing time.

Two of the freshmen are from Baltimore.  Braxton Dupree, 6-8, 260 inside banger from Calvert Hall and Dino Gregory, 6-7, 227 swingman from Mt St Joe.  It’s good to see that in the tradition of Juan Dixon and Keith Booth, the Terps have some key players from Baltimore.  Last night, Dupree had 4 points and 4 rebounds in 15 minutes and was the first forward reserve in the game, and, Gregory had 2 points, 3 rebounds in 7 minutes.

In Gist, Vasquez and Hayes, the Terps have three solid players that, on any given night, can play with anyone.  But can they get solid production out of the other spots.  It’s what happens there that will probably determine how good this club can be.

Right now, they are un-ranked and were picked to finish 6th out of 12 in the pre-season ACC poll.  But it seems that over the years, Gary Williams can get big results out of teams with lower expectations.  By the way, Gary enters this year 15 wins shy of 600 for his career.

I’ll be hosting the Terps pre and post-game radio shows this year on ESPN Radio and FM talk 105.7.  Plus we have Johnny Holliday and Chris Knoche, one of the country’s best tandems, to call the action.

Should be a fun season.  Join us Sunday night for the season opener vs. North Florida, pre-game show starts at 7pm. 

Posted on Thursday, November 8th, 2007 at 3:25 pm.
Categories: 1300 News.
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