The sight has become more common over the last two weeks: Terrell Stoglin leaving a shot just a bit short.
The Maryland sophomore is averaging 17 points, four off his season average. Most noticeably, he’s just 19-for-69 from the floor, a 27.5 percent clip.
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The hypothesis here: Stoglin is tired after playing 32.6 minutes per game. Coach Mark Turgeon agreed.
“I think a lot of Terrell’s problems down the stretch is he’s just exhausted,” Turgeon said Saturday. “He had to carry us through Mount St. Mary’s, he had to carry us through Radford. Colorado, he has 25 in the second half. Teams are guarding him with a little bit better players than we were playing against back then. He gets everybody’s attention. When the team’s playing better, Terrell’s playing better. When the team’s playing bad, he doesn’t play as well. It kind of goes hand in hand.”
It’s a tough spot for Turgeon, especially with Pe’Shon Howard out. It’s not like he can cut back Stoglin’s minutes on game days, or fellow guard Sean Mosley for that matter. So that leaves limiting practice reps as the best chance to save the guys the Terps have leaned heavily upon all year.
“We’ve really cut back practice for him and Sean a lot,” Turgeon said. “I think Sean’s responded better than Terrell as far as getting his legs back underneath him, but Sean’s a little more mature and does the cold tubs and things like that that are important to get your legs back.”
As for whether it can give Maryland a bit of a push late in the year, including in Sunday’s home finale against Virginia?
“I didn’t think anybody could keep Terrell in front of them because I just think he’s that good with the ball,” Turgeon said. “He’s had trouble blowing by people the last four or five games. He’s tired. We’ve tried to rest him more. Georgia Tech, he couldn’t go by anybody. He did one play and got to the rim. I thought Carolina, he had more freshness to him. We’ve really gone light and we’re going to go light today. I’m hoping that we have energy, that everybody has energy tomorrow, including him.”
—- Patrick Stevens
