Sophomore rewards Maryland’s patience
Before Saturday’s game against visiting North Carolina, Maryland coach Gary Williams outlined his formula for success in the locker room. One of the bullets struck a cord with sophomore Cliff Tucker.
Duke at MarylandWhen » Wednesday, 9Where » Comcast CenterTV/Radio » ESPN/106.7 FM» Duke (22-5, 8-4) blasted Maryland in Durham, 85-44.
“Coach wrote on the board that somebody else nobody knows about needs to step up tonight,” said Tucker. “I just had it in my mind the whole night, I wanted to be that guy.”
In Maryland’s 88-85 win over the No. 3 Tar Heels, Tucker was “that guy” when Maryland needed him most. Hitting four 3-pointers and scoring 17 points in the final 14 minutes of regulation, the 6-foot-6 Tucker fueled a rally from 16 points down.
“Coach [Keith] Booth has been telling me all week, even when I wasn’t playing, as soon as I get in there, I’m gonna get a chance to prove to coach that I want to be a starter,” said Tucker. “Just try and do what I do best, and just go out there and not worry about missing shots and play hard.”
Tucker finished with a career-high 22 points and added six rebounds. Tucker’s previous high (18 points) came in a loss at North Carolina 18 days earlier. It’s the kind of stuff Maryland has waited for, but has seen in only intermittent bursts from the El Paso product.
“Cliff is capable of doing that every single night,” said Maryland senior Dave Neal. “He’s athletic, and he can shoot the ball. He plays hard when he gets in the game and he can play with just about anybody.”
Tucker had a promising freshman year in which he shot 49 percent from the floor and averaged 4.1 points in 15.8 minutes per game. But this year, Tucker’s shooting (42 percent) and minutes (11.5) had fallen off, and sophomore Adrian Bowie and freshman Sean Mosley had overtaken him on the depth chart.
“He’s really coming along. He wasn’t playing. Now he’s really a key to our team,” said Williams. “It takes a lot of perseverance. It takes a lot of will power when you have a lot of people telling him ‘the coach doesn’t like him, he should be playing.’”
