Maryland Basketball: Is Mark Turgeon holding the Terps back?

Maryland Basketball lost a close game to the Seton Hall Pirates. How much blame should be placed on head coach Mark Turgeon?

Is it a hot seat for Mark Turgeon? I suppose “hot” is a relative term – but let’s not bury the lede here: Mark Turgeon is in his eighth year at the helm of the Terps’ program, and he has produced exactly one (1) run to the Sweet Sixteen. Perhaps Turge’s fans will point to that instead of the four out of the last seven years that Testudo didn’t get to travel to an NCAA tournament site for a men’s basketball game.

Some might say that Maryland basketball doesn’t have a rich enough tradition to expect better from their team, but Terps fans will readily point out that they are the last team from the current BIG 10 to win a national championship.

Mark Turgeon’s recruiting chops are roundly lauded as excellent, and he consistently has a strong staff in place; with a consensus top-15 recruiting class arriving to College Park this season, Turgeon may yet have his most talented collection of young players ready to carry out his vision.

Five-star recruit F/C Jalen Smith has emerged looking to wreak havoc for a team that has not been able to land a player of his caliber since one Diamond Stone – his inside-out game has improved throughout the non-conference slate, and he’s prepared to wreak havoc in the BIG. His entry elevates Maryland’s starting bigs to one of the best tandems in the nation with Bruno Fernando.

Fresh-faced four-stars Eric Ayala and Aaron Wiggins have shown themselves invaluable, keying in as capable shooters and ballhandlers for the Terps, areas that were seen by many as lacking with the departure of Kevin Huerter. Being able to have strong and confident ballhandlers off the bench seemingly would make Mark Turgeon’s job a lot easier. Serrell Smith has also emerged as an instant-offense option to provide a scoring spark off the Terp’s bench. Young talent is not something that the Terps are lacking this year, and they have two of the best returning players in the conference with Anthony Cowan and Bruno Fernando.

The Terps have gone 9-3 to start the season with wins against Loyola-Chicago and Marshall along with a close loss to Virginia. This season’s non-conference slate was slightly stronger than Turgeon’s tradition, with a solid match-up against Seton Hall on tap next. Perhaps Turgeon has realized the need to beef up his out of conference schedule, as he has been roundly criticized during his tenure for an overall lack of challenge to his players before conference play.

Perhaps the most glaring issue many of Turgeon’s detractors have had with him is his in-game coaching. The offense that Maryland has run since the beginning of Turgeon’s tenure is based almost solely off of pick and roll action; there are not many instances of real motion or ball movement. The ball almost always ends up in the scoring point guard’s hands (Melo Trimble and Anthony Cowan say hello) pounding the ball at the top of the key as the shot clock trickles down to nothing, leading to a wild drive or contested three pointer.

Unfortunately, sometimes Turgeon’s lack of tactical intricacy can be made painfully clear at the most dire times. This was apparent during the Terps’ loss to Purdue earlier this season, particularly in the final play of the game.

Down by two points with seconds left, the Terps had an inbounds opportunity where they looked to toss it in to high-flyer Bruno Fernando at the rim by having point guard Anthony Cowan (one of the smallest players on the court) set a back screen to free up Fernando.

However, as the lead was two, Purdue’s Matt Haarms easily anticipated the play and shed Cowan’s screen aside.  Since the first option wasn’t available, the next best option was apparently to have Cowan scramble to the corner and take a off-balance and contested three that was easily blocked as time expired.

During Turgeon’s postgame press conference, he had some interesting comments about the final play, as UMD student newspaper The Diamondback’s James Crabtree noted while live-tweeting the presser:

For a power conference head coach in college basketball of a team with NCAA Tournament aspirations to say this is mind-boggling. A chance to win at the end of a conference game, and your team does not have the practiced chops to execute a simple in-bounds play.

Can we honestly believe that Turgeon, who has been at his post for seven seasons, has not had the ability to draw up some in-bounds plays with his assistants and install them during practice with his teams? This mismanagement is just one example of the way that Turgeon’s in-game tactics can have Terps fans scratching their heads.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention that the team (and the athletic program at-large) is still working through a host of issues stateside off of the court. The football team’s debacle notwithstanding, there are were still many unanswered questions about the university’s leadership and the athletic department’s future direction at the start of the season. Much of Turgeon’s future might have depended on if school president Wallace Loh ended up sticking around – not to mention that Kevin Anderson, the former athletic director who hired Turgeon, is no longer around to stand up for his man. We know now that Loh will be leaving Maryland this summer, casting some doubt on Turgeon’s future.

Mark Turgeon has an extremely important set of games ahead of him this season. With all the talent he has in place this year, this has to be the breakthrough for him in College Park. Can he put aside any criticism of his in-game tactics to lead the Terps to the promised land? Only time will tell.