I was there as well--Comcast is a palace, with every modern amenity you could imagine (I appreciated the cold beer on tap), but I'd agree that it has an "NBA" type feel than a collegiate feel....
Purdue did a superb job of handling this atmosphere for the first 16 minutes, but ill-advised threes down the stretch (what the hell was biggie thinking jacking a three when we had the ball up 4 with 4 minutes left?!?!) and our inability to prevent dribble penetration by Trimble ( And to penetrate ourselves) swung the game to the Terps.
This game was there for the taking...
Also at the game. Obviously much harder to keep track of stats and such.
1. Johnny Hill did not have a great game on the offensive end. A couple bad decisions by him to drive, but really killed us (see my next point). However, he really plays hard and one of his rebounds he came out of nowhere to get amongst the bigs.
2. When we went on a couple runs and gained a lead, we would follow with a few momentum killing possessions. A couple of those were badly timed drives by Hill, a couple turnovers and a couple quick/bad shots (Swanigan's 3 mentioned above). Great if you make it, but not the best decisions - particularly early in the clock.
3. AJ's 3rd foul really hurt us. The barrage of foul calls early in the second half was pretty sad. While at first they only went against Purdue, when they started calling a couple on MD, the MD fans weren't happy with the sudden change in pace either.
4. Our bigs need to dunk. They finally caught on a bit, but we missed a couple shots in the first half that they easily could have dunked that they tried to lay in.
5. We gave up too many easy buckets under the basket. I'm not sure the cause as I was sitting at a bad angle to the basket, but it was simply too many.
6. Vince had a rough game. 3 point shooting is the obvious culprit on the stat sheet, but we just needed someone to have a good game offensively. We've seen Vince step up and be that "other" guy lately, but he just didn't have a good game - and unfortunately there wasn't another guy that did.
7. We shot too many 3s and Swanigan shooting FIVE was absurd. Take out those 5 and Swanigan had a pretty good game. We're at a point in the season where Swanigan needs to come out of his freshman shell. He keeps getting closer and closer, but has one really bad stat.
8. Rebounding wasn't as strong as we have been all season.
Overall, Purdue showed some grittiness on the road against the Big Ten's best team right now. Early on the game when Maryland came out firing, I was worried it was going to get out of control quickly. Purdue really showed some composure at times and had the Maryland crowd rather anxious most of the game.
Going forward, we obviously have another big game this week. Our rebounding needs to be stronger, shot selection a bit better and hopefully someone can make a 3! I hope to see Kendall back getting some playing time. MSU has been playing well after their skid and really took it to Michigan yesterday. Going to be another very tough game.
