His wife, Kathy, and friends Joanne and Jared Mandell of Owings Mills laughed. Maryland faced No. 12 seed South Dakota State in the first round and then No. 13 seed Hawaii in the second round after the Rainbow Warriors pulled off a big upset against California.
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This Maryland team never formed into the juggernaut that some people were predicting at the beginning of the season. After such a long wait, and with such a strong test to come, they wanted at least this happy memory.
Top-seeded Kansas roared through the opening week of the NCAA Tournament and attempts to post its 17th consecutive victory Thursday when it faces fifth-seeded Maryland in the Sweet 16 at Louisville, Ky. Both had good games in the Round of 32 and will be looking to be the difference makers for their respective teams. They have been ranked nationally in the top-10 for the majority of the season. The good news is whichever guy doesn’t guard Perry is going to have to guard Wayne Selden, and while Wayne isn’t the greatest ballhandler in the world, he is certainly quick enough to get past one of those two and get some open looks. “It’s special to be in the Sweet 16 and we are ready to play tomorrow night”. Hart will be the best player on the floor and their bench guards are just a bit better. In Turgeon’s sixth season at Wichita State, the Shockers earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament after a 26-9 regular season in 2006, which is a regular-season best for Turgeon. Of the seven teams that the conference got into the tournament, four lost in the first round.
Then there were the expectations, those seemingly nonstop expectations that finally ceased when Maryland lost five of eight games entering the NCAA Tournament.
There was definitely an inkling that something like this could be possible, but most of those ideas involved Cheick Diallo getting cleared early in the year and developing quickly into a Joel Embiid-like player and making a huge impact down low. “The worst part was not that the guy made the 3”, Buckner said, “but the pass [to him] went to the wrong guy”.
He’s been at Maryland since 2011.
MELO FAREWELL? Guard Melo Trimble has not yet announced whether he return for his junior season or go pro.
“First of all, the Kansas thing is not that weird to me anymore or unique”. I pay attention to what we can control as a team, as a group.
“I had a chance to coach against him when he was at A&M, and his teams are sound”. If you told me at the beginning of the season that Maryland would bow out in the Sweet 16, I probably would have said that the tournament is a crapshoot and shouldn’t be the sole measurement of whether a team had a successful season or not. They do a lot of ball screens. Either backcourt mate Rasheed Sulaimon or Jake Layman will need to knock down threes, and freshman Diamond Stone (12.7 ppg, 5.4 rpg) will have to play like the top-ranked recruit he was coming out of high school.
Ask Xavier, the East Region’s second-seeded team.
Maryland’s postseason run has been so exhilarating for some students, even the end of spring break became palatable.
“Most of the time we had a bell that rung every morning”. “If I do that, I’d just be selfish and not thinking about my teammates”, he said.
What happens next is anyone’s guess.
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“We had a lot of expectations”, Turgeon said. Kansas doesn’t really have a reliable center, so it’s going to be interesting to see how Self wants to deal with that. “The first and second rounds, it’s fun, it’s nice, it’s great”.
