Home for from the Holiday Tournament

18 hours (give or take some) after beating the Pirates, the Terps racked up another win at ECU's Holiday Tournament, as they beat the UMass Minutemen, 82-50. Having notched victories over both of the other two tournament participants, we guess that means Maryland will be bringing home a 1st place trophy. That should a make a nice souvenir from the Terps' Thanksgiving visit to Greenville, NC.

Today's game had no video feed as far as we could tell. So once again, the BCs followed the "action" via Gametracker. Watching animations and following stats never tells you as much as actually seeing a game with your own eyes. Still, we're pretty confident in saying that the smaller Minutemen posed no real challenge for the taller, deeper and athletic line-up of Maryland.

By halftime, Maryland was leading by 20 (39-19) and two Terps were already in double figures: T-Hawk and Alyssa, both with 10 points. Alyssa, who played 27 minutes, grabbed game-high scoring honors, finishing with 15 points, plus 7 boards, 3 assists and 2 steals. Not a bad day . . . for a rookie. And T-Hawk, playing only 19 minutes, wasn't far behind: 14 points, 7 boards, 2 steals and 2 blocks. Lynetta and Diandra also scored in double figures, each with 11.

The stat sheet wasn't all rosy . . . not quite as many turnovers and fouls as against ECU, but still too many. And Maryland's 3-pt shooters haven't yet broken out of their collective slump. But we know that that can quickly change . . . it just takes a few long-balls to drop and the slump will be history. Hopefully, that will happen in the next game.

Speaking of the next game, while the Terps are now heading home to College Park, they'll only be there a short time. Just long enough for a few days' practice (and to do their laundry and pack some clean clothes). Then it's time to hit the road again. Destination: West Lafayette, Indiana, home of the Purdue Boilermakers, for one of the annual BigTen/ACC Challenge games.

It's disappointing that we won't get to see Drey. Naturally, this one had to be special for her and her old Maryland friends/teammates. But despite Drey's absence, this inter-conference challenge game should still be exciting.

Go Terps/ACC . . . Beat the Boilermakers/Big Ten!