Maryland Midnight Madness running diary

Good look at jerseys - Booth, Cliff Tucker, and Adrian Bowie



Good look at the back of the jerseys



Shane Walker, Braxton Dupree, and Dino Gregory along the back

Terps in new unis this year. Close to the style that Ohio St wore last year. Tighter tops, baggier shorts. No more yellow and black pattern on the neck....though now its running down the middle of the back..and there are swatches on the back. Honestly, the jerseys dont look so hot. The shorts look solid. Our uniforms were fine the way they were, but I think this change came from Nike. What are you gonna do. Red versions look pretty strong. HOWEVAH...rumor on the street is that there is gold alternate version in the vault. If that comes out...all bets are off.

10pm: Johnny Holiday doing intros. Freshman first, starting w/ Adrian Bowie, wearing #22. Braxton Dupree next. #4. Looking very thick (pause)....maybe a little overweight. Huge arms though. Dino Gregory next..#33....looking pretty well done. Big lips. Nice funky dunks. preferred walk-on David Pearman is next...#23. He is extreeeemely rare. we are 3 for 3 on funky dunks so far. Cliff Tucker next...#24. Looks pretty athletic. Shane Walker coming down now (all guys coming down through the stands)...wearing #2. I hope he doesnt hurt himself trying to dribble. It just took 4 minutes for him to get down the stairs. I still haven't heard him talk, but I am praying he has a British accent (he's from England.) Dunk complete. Jerome Burney coming down now. Freshman last year but he redshirted after injuring his leg. There are what sounds like 3-10 NP girls screaming maniacally for him. He almost missed the dunk. He's 6'10"...lets just forget this happened.

10:02: Big cheer for Eric Hayes. He just went up and flushed w/ two hands. You have to like that from your 6'3" white PG.

10:03: Milbourne coming down. He looks jacked.

10:04: General Greivis coming down. I think he's singing. And he's doing the biggest SP thus far tonight.

10:05: Dave Neal comin...ah forget it.

10:06: Boom getting a huge reponse. The Fro is out of control. OOC. He just did the Arsenio Hall "woop woop" fist pump....and promptly botched a cradle dunk. Still love Boom.

10:07: Gist coming out last. Huge ovation.

10:08: some staff guy named Kenny Beaver just walked out to utter silence. Tough when Beaver can't even get an ovation from 22,000 college kids.

10:09: Gary chant

10:10. shot of Gary driving a Lamborghini around campus, wearing his ring. bah!!! shot of white kids dressed as duke and UNC nerds..what is this...

10:11: Bah!! Boom just jumped out and scared them, and did what can only be described as one of the top 10 happy go lucky NPs of all time.

10:12: Gary drives out on the court in a yellow Lamborghini...to some hip hop song. Gets out and give it the fist pump (love the fist pump).

10:15. Gary giving speech about MD b-ball history. Talks about Lefty inventing Midnight Madness. Just gave props to the cheerleaders and gymkana (...?)

10:17: stat just flashed: with wins over Davidson, High Point, NC State, Duke, Wake Forest, and North Carolina, the Terps swept the state of North Carolina (suck it) for the first time since 1932.

Lineups:
RED
James Gist
Eric Hayes
Adrian Bowie
Braxton Dupree
Dino Gregory
Jerome Burney


WHITE
General Greivis
Boom Osby
Landon Milbourne
Shane Walker
Cliff Tucker
Dave Neal


10:19: Hayes immediately w/ a sweet feed to Dupree, followed by a 3 by Gist, followed by a dunk for Dupree. Dupree looks like a load inside.

10:21: Dunk by Greivis, but red is dominating right now. Bowie is very active (as in high school) and Dupree is running the floor well so far.

10:22: Cliff Tucker looking very active as well. Couple boards...floater in traffic....put back. He looks like a solid 3 right now.

10:24: Red is killing white right now. I think Bowie might have 8 points already. He is out in front on every break.

10:25: Burney has a few buckets, but I can't really tell what his theme is. He has a shaved head. Seems to be moving around alright. I dont think he has much of an offensive game though. Hopefully he can give us a live body inside on D and the boards. He has an athletic build.

10:27: why are the walkons in already?

10:28: Milbourne looks very atheltic. Couple of real nice dunks and moves in traffic. Couple good boards. I haven't even noticed Dino Gregory yet. Not sure what his deal is.

10:29: Shane Walker looks more promising than when I saw him in high school (when he was average at best). Right now he looks like an athletic 6'10" dude who can run and jump. I guess him and Burney are pretty much clones.

10:30: Burney just took a 3. If anyone was watching, I hope you enjoyed it, because I dobut we'll see that again over the next 4 years.

10:31: And thats it....best play was probably a sweet alley oop from Hayes to Gist. After seeing them in full force, the jersey's aren't that bad. The whole back thing is kinda weird, but my guess we are used to it by January 1.

10:33: Well, that was fairly worthless. But I dont blame them. No one got hurt, and we saw them run around. I dont know what the deal w/ Gregory was, but I'm not sure if he played. Looks to me like the battle for the starting 3 spot will be between Milbourne and Tucker, with Milbourne having a big edge. He looks jacked and athletic, and he has a year under his belt. I would not be totally suprised to see us go w/ a three guard lineup of the General, Hayes, and Bowie at times. Esp against a team like Duke that generally used a guy like Demarcus Nelson (6'3") at the 3. Bowie is tailor made to cover Nelson.

Looking at the schedule, my completely biased prediction is: 8-1 by the time we hit BC on 12/9. The way the CBE Tourney bracket its, assuming we get past the 2 scrub teams we play at Comcast, we'd play UCLA...most likely the preseason #1 in the nation. IN addition, we play VCU in the BB&T Classic. There are then 7 more cupcakes games before the ACC slate. So the overall, the five hardest OOC games are UCLA (probably) in St.Louis, VCU (Eric Maynor) at Verizon Center, Illinois at Comcast in the ACC / Big 10 "Challenge", Charlotte in Charlotte, and Holy Cross at Comcast. That is 4 losable games outside of UCLA, which leaves us somehwere between 11-5 and 15-1. Lets call it 14-2. I dont see us losing to Illinois or Holy Cross at home. We dont lose home nonconference games. Charlotte is way down. BC and VCU feels like a split.

Now, without going into detail, just eyeballing the teams in the ACC, the way the games on are schedule are set up, etc.....I'm going to go with 11-5. Split with Duke, loss to UNC, loss to NC State...2 random losses. 25-7 seems pretty crazy for a team that lost 3 starters and 4 seniors and huge chunk of the scoring and rebounding...but thats the way college is these days. Freshman and sophomores carry top teams all the time now. Anyway, I would put the absolute floor at 21-10. But something tells me General Greivis would never let that happen:

"When you are a freshman, you never forget. This jersey means so much to me. Losing that game was like losing a family member."
-The General, on last season's tourney loss to Butler.

"I love when the crowd is on me. They were trying to make me mad. They were talking about the president of Venezuela. I love it. It was so nice. I've got three more years, and it's going to be fun. They might be worried about me now."
-The General, after putting 13, 12 and 9 on Duke at Cameron.
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