Terrapins leave room to improve

“There were some guys missing shots that made some really big time shots against some good teams [last season],” Williams said. “We need them to put the ball in the basket.”

The Terrapins open the regular season Sunday night at 8 against North Florida at Comcast Center in the opening round of the O?Reilly Auto Parts CBE Classic. Senior James Gist and sophomore Landon Milbourne are suspended for the game after playing in a non-sanctioned basketball event in the offseason. Gist is the team?s most experienced player, and Milbourne is expected to see significant playing time at small forward.

In preparing for Sunday?s game, Maryland played much of Wednesday?s second half with the two forwards on the bench.

“Not being able to play in a game is always disappointing,” Gist said. “The team will react to it just like they did in the second half [Wednesday]. They?ll step up.”

After leading just 26-10 at the half, Maryland put the game away in the second half largely because of stellar play by its freshmen. Led by guard Adrian Bowie?s 9 points, Maryland?s rookie class accounted for 22 points.

“You could see them kind of twitching and could tell they were nervous, which was fine because that was the same way I was last year,” sophomore guard Eric Hayes said. “They looked a little nervous in the first half, but they looked a lot better in the second half.”

Maryland committed 18 turnovers and was outrebounded, 42-39, by Concordia, and shot just 30.8 percent from the floor in the first half before shooting 55.2 percent in the second half. The Terps finished the game with 10 blocks ? four by Gist ? to go along with 12 steals as they forced Concordia to shoot just 27 percent.

“We?ve still got a lot to work on as far as offense goes, but I was really impressed with our defense,” Gist said. “With how young we are, we still have a lot of work to do.”

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