Dec 29, 2012; College Park, MD, USA; Maryland Terrapins guard Dez Wells (32) looks down the court to set up a play against the Delaware State Hornets during the second half at Comcast Center. Mandatory Credit: Paul Frederiksen-USA TODAY Sports

Editors Note: This game preview was written by Terrapin Station staff writer Chris Bengel.

The Teams: Maryland Terrapins (12-1) vs Virginia Tech Hokies (9-4)

The Time: 12:00 PM ET

The Location: Comcast Center, College Park, Maryland

TV/Radio: ESPN3, 105.7 FM

The Backstory: After nearly two months of mostly cupcake opponents, the time has finally come for the Maryland Terrapins to begin ACC conference play. Virginia Tech comes to town on Saturday having lost three of their last four games. The Hokies started off the season being one of the biggest surprise teams in the country but have been blown out by both Colorado State and BYU. They also have a terrible loss against Georgia Southern, who Maryland beat very handily.

The Hokies boast three players that averaged double figures in Erick Green (24.4 ppg), Jarrell Eddie (14.8), and Robert Brown (10.6). They’re a team that likes to run and push the ball up and down the court. Green is their star that is not afraid to take his shot and he’ll go up against multiple defenders to take it. They are a team that shoots the ball pretty well with both Green and Eddie shooting over 40-percent.

One of the keys to watch for the Terrapins is who starts at the power forward spot. In their final non-conference game on Tuesday against IUPUI, Mark Turgeon elected to start freshman Charles Mitchell over senior James Padgett. Mitchell earned the start due to his stellar play (19 points & 13 rebounds) against Delaware State. Mitchell ended up scoring seven points and grabbing five boards while Padgett netted eight points and had six rebounds. With the statistics being that close, it’ll be interesting to see which forward Turgeon goes up in the ACC opener.

Keys to the game:

1.) Contain Green

Virginia Tech has a pretty well-rounded squad, but keeping Erick Green under wraps will go a long way in deciding this game. Green possesses a wealth of speed and is not afraid to take the difficult shot. Maryland will have to try their best to play tough defense and possibly have a second defender rotate to help out. The best they can do is make Green take those tougher shots in hopes of slowing him down. As Green goes, so go the Hokies.

Lord knows that won’t be easy as Green is the second leading scorer in the entire country averaging 24.4 ppg. For the majority of the game, I’d expect Mark Turgeon to stick sophomore guard/forward Dez Wells on Green. Wells possesses tremendous athleticism and defensive acumen that could be enough to get the job done against Green. The Terrapins want to put their best pure defender on Green and don’t want to sacrifice fouls that could put a guy like Nick Faust on the bench. Wells should provide the better matchup.

2.) Win the battle on the boards

The Hokies may not be the strongest pure defensive team around but they do have tremendous length and defend the paint pretty effectively. They have a solid rotation of bigs that includes Eddie (6.8 rpg), Cadarian Raines (6.3), C.J. Barksdale (5.2), and Joey Van Zegeren (3.5). They have very good size and force opposing players to try and shoot over them. Their starting lineup as a whole is very big and could make things a tad difficult for the Terrapins.

This is where Maryland needs guys like Alex Len, Shaquille Cleare, and Mitchell to prove their worth. Len has sleepwalked through the last portion of the non-conference schedule and hasn’t had as many dominant performances as he had early on in the season. Cleare had a solid game against IUPUI (8 points & 5 rebounds) and has played some good defense as of late. Maryland should be able to impose their will on the glass as they have all season. The Terrapins are sixth in the country as they average 43.0 rebounds per game.

Prediction: Maryland wins its ACC opener and keeps the winning streak intact in front of what should be a raucous Comcast Center defeating the Hokies by the score of 79 – 65.

Dec 15, 2012; Blacksburg, VA, USA; Virginia Tech Hokies guard Erick Green (11) reacts after missing a shot against the Georgia Southern Eagles during the second half at Cassell Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Peter Casey-USA TODAY Sports

As the Terrapins head into their first ACC game against Virginia Tech, here are a few keys to the game that the team will need to accomplish in order to win.

1.) How will Alex Len play his second go-round in the ACC?

Last year when Alex Len made his ACC debut, I was giddy like a schoolgirl heading to prom when he gave N.C. State and C.J. Leslie some serious work, to the tune of 12 points, 11 rebounds, and 2 blocks. I mean, sure C.J. Leslie dropped 20 on him and made me legitimately think about whether or not Len knew how to play defense, but at least one part of his game was great. Flash forward to now and I know those concerns about how aggressive Len will be offensive and defensively, night in and night out, are real.

This year, the Terrapins first game is against Virginia Tech — a team that has absolutely no bigs on the roster who have even a smidgen of the talent that Len has. So which Alex Len will show up? The one that stole Nerlens Noel’s lunch money for 23 points, 12 rebounds and 4 blocks in the first game of the season? Or the one that had 6 points and 2 rebounds against Delaware State and didn’t play aggressively at all (except when he was racking up bad fouls)?

Len has very solid games all the time, but when he’s truly transcendent and living up to the hype of being a top five NBA pick, that’s when the Terrapins are viewed as a team that can beat anyone. No one should be able to drive on the Terrapins considering his size and lateral movement. That is to say, when Len is on, he should be swatting balls all night long into the upper bowl — at Byrd Stadium. Will he do that against Tech?

2.) Who guards Erick Green?

Another legitimate question is who the heck guards Erick Green, the 6’4 shooting guard who is the human rickshaw that pulls along the rest of their team? Green is having a tremendous season offensively, and he’s scored 120 points in his past five games, so logic would suggest he’s going to hoist against the Terrapins. He handles the ball the majority of the time for Tech, so Pe’Shon might start on him, but if Green blows past P a bunch during the game, Turgeon might be forced to pick someone else.

Nick Faust might be able to get in his face quite a bit, but that leaves Faust-clone Robert Brown to be guarded by, presumably, Pe’Shon. Against P he might actually make some shots (he’s shooting 37% from the field this year), which could cause problems for Maryland if Tech is spacing the floor well.

That leaves us with Dez Wells, which is an interesting proposition. Wells may be the best candidate for the job athletically, but Green knows how to draw contact when he drives. A couple of fouls early from Wells and the Terps lose, arguably, their best player and paves the way for underrated-but-inconsistent Jarrell Eddie to hit threes over a smaller Nick Faust.

Chances are, Turgeon will throw a lot of players at Green, but I’m not sure which one will be the most effective.

3.) Will Maryland dominate the offensive boards?

Little acknowledged fact about Virginia Tech? They’re downright terrible at rebounding, and that includes giving up offensive rebounds far, far too often to enjoy. They’re second to last in rebounding in the ACC, which is alarming considering the pace they play at, and get beaten on the offensive glass almost every game. They give up, on average, over 12 offensive rebounds a game.

Their “big man” Cadarian Raines has scored a total of two points in three of their last five games, and their best front court player lately is walk-on Christian Beyer. C.J. Barksdale has been some butt this year as well, averaging only five points and four rebounds a game. With these guys manning the ship, the Terrapins should eviscerate the Hokies on the offensive and defensive boards.

Doing that, and winning the rebounding battle, would in fact give the Terrapins a huge edge and allow them to pull away with extended possessions and slowing down a Hokies team that loves to shoot a bunch.

Dec 15, 2012; Blacksburg, VA, USA; Virginia Tech Hokies guard Erick Green (11) shoots the ball against Georgia Southern Eagles forward Cameron Baskerville (32) during the second half at Cassell Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Peter Casey-USA TODAY Sports

I know the Maryland Terrapins basketball team is three games away from playing Virginia Tech, and the game is almost a month away, but preparation is still important. I’ve spent the past three days breaking down the a few of Virginia Tech’s games (courtesy of ESPN3), and I’ve gotten a pretty good idea of how this team likes to play basketball. I’ll break down the main points for you in the first of many ACC scouting reports this season, so that our fans can be some of the more knowledgeable fans in the nation.

The Good: Speed, Length, and Size

Virginia Tech has two things going for them overall: they run like the wind and they have adequate length and size down low to properly cover opposing big men. When you watch Virginia Tech play, you get the idea that they don’t really have too many set plays (and that’s being generous). The Hokies run the length of the court quickly and rarely use the entire shot clock to get a shot off, for better or worse. Erik Green, their resident ball handler/combo guard, won’t hesitate to push it the length of the court using his speed and trying to convert anything he can against anyone (1-on-5, 1-on-3, doesn’t matter). Transition baskets are plentiful for the Hokies, as are isolation plays where Green takes his defenders one-on-one and tries to convert on a layup.

Virginia Tech’s M.O. is beating the opposing team down the floor, and they do it to the tune of an 81.3 PPG average as a team. They are the ninth best scoring team in the nation as a result, ahead of Duke, Ohio State, and even Oregon State in that statistical category. When they aren’t slashing to the basket, the Hokies are dishing the ball out to their shooters (Jerrell Eddie and Robert Brown) as they draw people into the lane to prevent another drive.

Another facet of the Hokies game that is an advantage for them is their size. The Hokies are far from a huge team, but they’re also far from a small team. Of their starting five, only one of them is below 6’5 (Green). None of their players top 7 feet, but all of their players are lengthy guys who don’t hesitate to play hard-nosed defense against any team. Down low, their rotation of Raines, Barksdale, Van Zegeren, and Eddie gives them players ranging between 6’8 to 6’10 1/2. All of these guys are relatively long individuals who defend the paint well (defend is in italics, because it’s completely different from something else that involves the paint that Virginia Tech does horibbly).

Down low they do their best to defend the paint well and force teams to shoot over them, rather than attack the lane at will. They rarely give opposing teams an easy bucket, and almost every shot a team takes will be a contested shot with a hand or a body in their face. Believe it or not, one of the players that impressed me the most on their team was Van Zegeren, the 6’10 big man from Netherlands. With freshman Marshall Wood likely being out for the game against Maryland, Van Zegeren will get more minutes for the Hokies. He is very long and very raw, meaning he plays like a Jack Russell Terrier on Adderall. The times when he is under control, however, he can guard most players because of his length and his tenacity on the defensive end. He has solid footwork and can stay in front of big and small men, and seems to have a solid grasp of help defense.

The Bad: Rebounding and a one dimensional offense

The two things that Virginia Tech doesn’t do that well (rebound and moving the ball particularly well), they do so badly that it can be deemed an Achilles heel for their team. In every game I watched of theirs, their failure to clean up the defensive glass essentially threw a wrench into their game plan. Against a bad team like Mississippi Valley State, that features one guy who is 6’11 and zero guys averaging more than five rebound a game, the Hokies still managed to give up 16 offensive rebounds (in a game which they were almost outrebonded overall). Against Georgia Southern (a game which they lost), they gave up 12 offensive rebounds. The coup de gras performance came against West Virginia, where they gave up a staggering 20 offensive rebounds in total. Get the picture?

Against a team like Maryland, Virginia Tech is going to get absolutely demolished on the offensive boards unless they can come up with a better game plan, and I’m not entirely certain that they can. Yes, they are still very much in games despite this lack of rebounding prowess because their pace is so fast, but that will change against ACC teams. Why are they so bad at rebounding on the offensive glass? It’s hard to say. None of their players outside of Eddie are particularly good at rebounding, and their positioning down low is absolutely horrible. They are more focused on defending the man even after the shot than they are at grabbing rebounds. Players slip through their defensive front like a sieve and grab boards whenever they want. When they do manage to get their hands on a ball (which is when they don’t over commit to a person), it often just gets taken away from them because their hands aren’t in the right position. It’s a travesty, through and through.

The other thing they don’t do well is score outside of two plays: The Erik Green drive in the lane and the Jerrell Eddie/Robert Brown long two/corner three off a Green kick out. That is really all that this offense runs, and when the shots aren’t going in for this team they revert to Green “Hero Ball” from that point on. When Eddie and Brown are hitting their shots, it’s a very effective game plan and one that gives defenses fits because Green can cut defenders and get wide open looks down low. He scores points because of how good he is at finishing at the rim and the amount of shots he takes, but don’t sleep on his ability to find open gunners. Eddie is the kind of guy that strikes you as a feast or famine type player, meaning that when his shots are going in things are great, but when they aren’t he is a virtual non-factor in the offense.

Brown is the X-factor for their offense, and in fact he largely mirrors Nick Faust of Maryland. Both players are about 6’5-6’6, around 200 lbs, lanky and athletic. Both players are decent at passing and rebounding, and shoot so-so from the floor thanks to their insistence on shooting three pointers. However, when the shots are falling for either player, their teams are virtually unstoppable. That happened against Oklahoma State and West Virginia, where Brown dropped 18 and 21 points respectively in those games, hitting 7 and 9 shots in each game. When Brown gets hot, he can score from anywhere, really, just like Faust.

If he is on, then the entire offense flows and the Hokies end up scoring 90 points in a game. Unfortunately, he is just as streaky as Nick Faust is, and it’s hard to say which Brown the Hokies will get night in and night out.

Outlook for Maryland: Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.

The Terrapins match up well, and excel at what the Hokies do worst, which is protect the defensive glass. I like our chances, but the Hokies move very quickly and cannot be slept on.