The Maryland men's basketball team couldn't sustain a solid game against Duke and nearly let Saturday's victory over Virginia Tech slip away, but it's pretty obvious that the program is moving quickly in the right direction. The Terps are young and inexperienced, which was evident again in the final minutes yesterday, but they have enough talent to be reasonably competitive with all but the elite teams and things will only get better with the next incoming class of recruits.

What you're seeing right now is a team still learning how to play together. That's evident in the number of ill-advised shots that the Terps are taking and the number of uncontested points they are giving up in the paint -- particularly when fatigue starts to set in late in games. That's tough to watch sometimes, as it was when the Plumlee brothers were nailing down the victory for Duke, but it's part of the developmental progression that new coach Mark Turgeon knew the team would have to go through to get back to the upper reaches of the ACC.

That won't happen this year, but if you had told me the Terps would have 13 wins overall and be 3-3 in conference at this point in Turgeon's first season, I wouldn't have believed you. The Terps are ahead of schedule.

Posted by Peter Schmuck at 11:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Just baseball
        

There has been a lot of chatter on the various blogs and Orioles fan sites about the direction that Dan Duquette is taking the game in his first months as executive vice president, and a lot of it is pretty skeptical.

With good reason. The Orioles have spent the past decade half-stepping their way into oblivion, so fans have every right to wonder if Duquette is just playing to ownership's desire to keep the MASN spigot open and the payroll spigot closed. It's going to be up to him to prove that's not the case.

I think it's a little more complicated than that. Obviously, Duquette got the job because he convinced the search committee that he can make the team competitive by tapping into the second tier of the international market with a couple new sets of eyes overseas. The result has been a handful of signings that are intriguing but unspectacular, which means that we'll all have to wait and see how things shake out.

That's certainly convenient for the team and MASN, since it buys both some time to keep fans interested, but -- to his credit -- Duquette has not given himself a huge window to get results. He has followed up Andy MacPhail's four-year plan with a one-year plan, since he said at the outset that his goal is to be a winning team this year.

How will that be possible? Some feel that it isn't, considering that the Orioles didn't make any impact free agent acquisitions, but Duquette appears to be trying to do (in his own way) what Billy Beane did in Oakland in the early 2000s. He has thrown out a big net to add a bunch of contingent starting pitchers and role players, making the team much deeper in a lot of areas without necessarily making them much better.

He's stressing on-base percentage after inheriting a team with two of the league's biggest strikeout guys and farming the Pacific Rim to beef up the rotation and bullpen.

Will it work? Will Michael Lewis right a sequel called "Foreign Currencyball"? Orioles fans can only hope.

That will depend heavily, ironically enough, on the young pitchers who were already here. Duquette also is banking heavily on a successful comeback by Brian Matusz and the continued growth of Jake Arrieta and Zach Britton. If he gets that, the Orioles have a chance to be a .500 team, but isn't that what MacPhail was gambling on last spring?

Posted by Peter Schmuck at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (22)
Categories: Just baseball
        

The Orioles just announced their promotional schedule for the upcoming season and I'm going to give them some love for the way they are unveiling the six statues of the six Hall of Famers who have had their numbers retired by the club.

The team will honor one of them each month of the season in order of the retirement of their uniform numbers, beginning with Frank Robinson on April and ending with Cal Ripken on Sept. 6 -- the anniversary of the night he broke Lou Gehrig's consecutive games record. On each of those nights, the club will give every fan in attendance a 7-to-8-inch miniature replica of the statue being unveiled.

Can't think of a better way to do it. I realize the Orioles took a lot of heat for the Brooks statue situation -- and they deserved criticism for not being more publicly supportive of the project -- but that doesn't mean this can't be another nice honor for Brooks, Frank, Cal, Earl Weaver, Jim Palmer and Eddie Murray. And it basically guarantees six huge crowds at Camden Yards, so everybody wins.

Posted by Peter Schmuck at 9:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: Just baseball
        

The San Francisco 49ers and New Orleans Saints just put on a show for the ages. The Saints rallied from a mistake-riddled first half and an early 17-point deficit to take the lead late in the fourth quarter, and then the two teams traded lightning touchdown drives until the 49ers won the game on a terrific throw and catch from Alex Smith to former Maryland star Vernon Davis with nine seconds left.

Simply amazing. The two teams scored four touchdowns in the final four minutes, and it looked like the Saints were going to pull it out when Drew Brees hit Jimmy Graham for 66 yards and his second touchdown of the game with 1:48 to go. But Smith connected with Davis for 47 yards to get into field goal range and then took one shot for the win.

Don't know about you, but it was one of the greatest playoff games I've ever seen and I've seen a lot of them. I'd like to think the Patriots/Broncos game tonight will deliver some drama, but it doesn't look like it's shaping up that way.

Oh well, the Ravens probably will have to go through Foxboro to get to Indianapolis, but they've beaten the Pats there in in the playoffs before.

Posted by Peter Schmuck at 8:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Just football
        

Frankly, I have no idea how the loss of Luke Scott is going to affect the Orioles. It all depends on whether Scott would have have made a successful comeback from the shoulder injury that cost him a chunk of the 2011 season. I suspect he would have come back healthy, because nobody works harder to get in shape and stay there, but it's still hard to say whether this is going to be a significant loss.

What I do know is that the clubhouse just got less interesting. Scott was fearlessly outspoken, which ruffled a lot of feathers around here. He questioned President Barack Obama's citizenship and regularly preached the joys of both his evangelical Christianity and the Second Amendment. In the great liberal stronghold that is Maryland, he certainly alienated his share of fans, but if you got a chance to meet him it was impossible not to like him.

He'll have a new audience in South Florida, and I'm sure the local media will have some fun with his occasional opinions on the presidential race. I'll miss his unsinkable optimism, his unbelievable hot streaks and his mammoth home runs. I won't miss his unbelievable six-week hitting slumps or his footwork at first base.

The Orioles still have more than a month to add another power bat, if that's really what Dan Duquette intends to do. I'm guessing Buck Showalter will turn left field over to Nolan Reimold and give him an extended chance to re-establish himself as the player he was in 2009. The DH slot remains problematic, though Showalter has indicated that he would like to rotate some regulars through it to spell them in the field.

That's may be the plan, but one more power bat certainly wouldn't hurt.

Posted by Peter Schmuck at 2:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (24)
Categories: Just baseball
        

Everybody -- including me -- wanted the Ravens to play the Texans this Sunday in the first home playoff game of the John Harbaugh era, but if you think that this is a walkover matchup for the Ravens, think again.

The Texans have a lot going for them, including -- not except for -- rookie quarterback T.J. Yates. While everybody has been swooning over Tim Tebow the last few weeks, Houston's third-string quarterback has held things together and kept the Texans on track for an upper-half seed in the postseason.

He looked pretty good against the Bengals and he's got Arian Foster to keep the pressure off him. The Texans could jump up and bite the Ravens in the tail-feather area if Joe Flacco spends too much time going downfield on third and short and wastes a bunch of possessions.

Don't misunderstand. Given the choice among the available opponents going into this past weekend, I chose the Texans, but only because I never imagined that Tebow and the Broncos ewould be available. Certainly, I'd rather have Denver coming here and the Patriots playing the Bengals, but the planets are only going to line up so much and then it's up to the Ravens to just win.

Will they? I would think so. They're 8-0 at home this year and Harbaugh is undefeated after his four regular-season bye weeks. They beat the Texans by 15 points at home earlier this season, and that was when Matt Schaub was healthy. Yes, they should win, but that doesn't mean they will, so let's hold the Tom Brady talk until after the game.

Posted by Peter Schmuck at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)
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My gut tells me that the Cincinnati Bengals can take the Texans on the road this weekend, but I think it would help the Ravens' chances of reaching the Super Bowl if Houston was the first team to visit M&T Bank Stadium for a playoff game during the John Harbaugh era.

That's open to debate, of course. The Steelers likely will show up here if the Bengals win, and I know a lot of fans think this would be a great time to catch them. The Steelers are very banged up and will be playing with a gimpy Ben Roethlisberger and without Rashard Mendenhall, so they might not even get past the Broncos. If they do, however, I'd like to see them face the Patriots and give both of those teams a chance to punch themselves out before the AFC championship game.

Posted by Peter Schmuck at 1:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Just football