Sources say the more than $4 million needed to buy out Coach Ralph Friedgen's contract will not be an obstacle should Maryland want to make a coaching change. Read Eric Prisbell's story, which also details the Terrapins' loss to Florida State on Saturday, here.
The Maryland men's basketball team will depart for Hawaii early tomorrow morning, and they'll do so in pretty good shape. The Terrapins are 3-0 after recording a 27-point win Friday night over New Hampshire. That Maryland's margin of victory against the Wildcats was its slimmest of the year thus far speaks both to the level of competition the Terrapins have faced and the high level at which they currently are performing. "I don’t judge the margins, the scores or anything like that," Coach Gary Williams said. "I’m just trying to get us to play at a certain level. A lot of times as a coach I work harder in these games than I do in some of the games later on because when you’re functioning on all cylinders and you’re a good team, you usually do a lot of great things. Now, especially with a couple of freshmen out there
Sophomore forward Steve Goins will not be present at tonight's game against New Hampshire at Comcast Center due to a violation of the Maryland athletic department's class attendance policy, according to a press release just issued by a team official. The two-sentence release does not go into any further detail regarding Goins's suspension, citing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. It is unknown at this point whether Goins will travel with the team to Hawaii for the Maui Invitational, which begins Monday. Coach Gary Williams said Thursday that Goins had returned to practice a day earlier and that the 6-foot-10 forward's lingering knee injury was progressing. Goins did not play in Maryland's first two regular season games, nor did he play in the exhibition contest Nov. 3, due to the knee injury.
Maryland team officials just handed out a press release announcing the signing of three members of its 2010 recruiting class. Point guard Terrell Stoglin, small forward Mychal Parker and power forward Ashton Pankey have signed their letters of intent to play for the Terrapins beginning next season. "All three players should have an immediate impact on our program," Coach Gary Williams said in the release. "They have the maturity and ability to play at a high level." The two-page release makes no mention of shooting guard Terrence Ross (Montrose Christian), who gave Maryland a verbal commitment in April but will wait until the spring to sign his letter of intent. Colleague Josh Barr broke that news earlier this week. Assuming Ross eventually signs with Maryland, the Terrapins will bring in a 2010 recruiting class that ranks in the top 20 in the nation. Scout.com currently has Maryland's class ranked No.
One of the interesting things to watch tonight when Maryland takes on New Hampshire at Comcast Center is how smoothly the team starts out on offense. In both of their first two games, the Terrapins got off to sluggish offensive starts before performing more effectively after halftime. Per usual, Maryland has not struggled to create points in transition off of turnovers. But Coach Gary Williams repeatedly has said that the team can't always rely on its defense to bail out its halfcourt offense. On Thursday, Williams was asked how he felt the halfcourt offense was coming along. "Halfcourt offense takes time," Williams said. "It's probably the toughest thing because, I mean, if you just run screen and roll plays like I've seen on a couple games, unfortunately our players have seen that too, but we do a little more than that, so there's a lot of timing involved and it
