There, I said it.
The fourth-seeded Maryland men’s basketball team will find a way to pull out their first round matchup against 13th-seeded Houston in Spokane.
Really not much of a proclomation, but I suppose I had to say it.
Word on the street is that Houston is a run-and-gun, jack-up-as-many-threes-as-humanly-possible kind of team.
After looking at the statistics, word on the street seems to be correct.
Houston boasts the nation’s top scorer in senior Aubrey Coleman, who is averaging 25.6 points per game. Fellow senior Kelvin Lewis attempted a team-high 251 three pointers this season, making 39.8% of those shots. As a team, Houston has attempted 794 three pointers, with the team making 35.6% of their threes overall.
For some perspective, Maryland has attempted 474 three pointers this season, with Greivis Vasquez attempting the most, at 181.
Speaking of Vasquez, if he puts up 21 points tonight, he’ll pass Len Bias as the second-leading scorer in Maryland history.
Something that could trouble Maryland is that if Coleman gets going, and Vasquez tries to match Coleman shot for shot. Maryland doesn’t want to try to match Houston three-ball for three-ball. Maryland will want to play disciplined basketball and slow the game down by getting to the foul line, and also feeding Jordan Williams on the inside.
If Maryland stays within their system and plays disciplined ball, they should win this game by about 10 or so. In other words, do what Gary says, and you’ll win.
I do indeed think Maryland has the guards that can penetrate the lane and get to the line in order to slow down the pace of the game. I also think from time to time, the Maryland transition game has the ability to run with Houston, but I don’t think Maryland wants to do that for the entire game.
Apparently, Houston doesn’t have a lot of size and struggles in the rebounding department. The statistics also indicate that Houston’s top rebounders are Coleman and junior Maurice McNeil, both of whom average 7.4 boards a game. McNeil is Houston’s tallest player at 6’9”.
For once this season, it looks like Maryland could end up having an advantage in the paint.
I’ll take Maryland in this one, 75-65.