This has been a rough basketball season. What with one thing and another, I haven’t been able to see many games involving either Maryland or Syracuse, and those games I have seen have been bad. Last night looked like it was going to be an exception, with my Terps holding a big lead over Clemson midway through the second half, but then they completely fell apart, getting outscored 34-11 down the stretch, including a tough 24-footer with two seconds left to give Clemson a 73-70 victory.
The decisive moment in this was probably the decision to sub Jason McAlpin in in the middle of the second half. It was a nice Senior Night gesture (he had already started the game, and played the first four minutes), but he’s been a human victory cigar for so long that putting him in the game said “This is over” to the players on the court. And Maryland’s biggest weakness this year has been mental focus.
When McAlpin went in, the regular starters got all casual, and the game completely fell apart. They turned the ball over, stopped getting out on shooters, and started trying to run clock rather than to score, and let Clemson back in the game. And when it finally dawned on them that they were in trouble, they couldn’t turn it back on to save the victory.
Between this, and the epic Syracuse collapse on Saturday, it was not a good basketball weekend in Chateau Steelypips. One of these two might still sneak into the NCAA’s, but neither deserves it at this point.