Maryland Basketball: Rebounding still an issue for Terrapins

The Maryland basketball team suffered a huge setback on Saturday.

Rebounding proved to still be an issue for the Terrapins against Wisconsin.

Maryland had a significant size advantage over Wisconsin, but still got outworked on the glass throughout Saturday’s game. The Badgers outrebounded 40-30 and grabbed 13 offensive boards at the Terps’ expense.

It seemed as though every time Maryland started to make a run, Wisconsin would answer with a huge perimeter shot. If the Badgers missed, someone was there to track down the offensive rebound.

On just Wisconsin’s third offensive possession, rebounding came to the forefront of the matchup.

After guard Melo Trimble was called for a moving screen on the other end, Wisconsin’s Bronson Koenig missed a three-pointer from the corner. Koenig’s miss ricocheted out pass the free throw line where forward Vitto Brown outleaped a bigger Diamond Stone for the rebound.  Brown’s rebound gave the Badgers a fresh shot clock.

Koenig ended up with the basketball once again and drove to the rim, but missed the layup. Forward Ethan Happ was able to get free and grab another board before putting up another miss. However, Brown was Johnny-on-the-spot and beat out Jake Layman and Stone for the putback to give Wisconsin a 5-2 lead.

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The J-Notes

Second chance points really were one of the bigger stories of the game. The Badgers had 20 second chance points while the Terps had just four.

Maryland was able to fight through a ton of adversity and get it to a 45-39 game with 10:45 left in the second half. However, that’s where rebounding became a huge factor.

With 7:48 to go, Trimble turned the ball over and Happ made his way down the court for a layup. Happ missed the layup, but Brown was right there like he had been all game and put it back to give the Badgers a 53-41 advantage.

Offensive rebounds completely doomed any attempt that Maryland had in coming back against Wisconsin.

If you look at the box score, there’s one thing that immediately jumps off the page when it comes to the Terps.

Michal Cekovsky, Damonte Dodd, and Stone combined for just two rebounds the entire game. Dodd and Stone had one apiece and Cekovsky didn’t even register a board. Cekovsky only played three minutes, which is very alarming given his performance against Bowie State.

The most alarming is Stone by a far stretch. Now he did miss the early portion of the second half due to sitting on the bench. Maybe that was punishment from coach Mark Turgeon for Stone’s antics near the end of the first half.

Stone still played 29 minutes and for a guy of his size to only have a single rebound, it’s absolutely astounding. Games like this elude to the fact that maybe Stone isn’t a one-and-done type of player and maybe he comes back for another season in College Park.

Dodd has also had his fair share of struggles this season. The Eastern Shore native is only grabbing 2.7 rebounds-per-game and has had five or more boards on only five occasions.

Obviously, Turgeon isn’t relying on Dodd for his offensive acumen, but they do need some energy and rebounding from the junior center.

Going forward, Dodd and Stone need to provide a whole lot more on the interior in order for Maryland to be successful. When March rolls around, there’s going to be teams that are closer to Maryland’s size or even bigger.

Next: Wisconsin shoots their way past Terps

The Terps are going to need to defend and outmuscle these teams on the glass if they want to make a Final Four run. This is simply an issue that needs to be fixed in the final five regular season games.