Remember just a few days back, when a trip to Florida seemed like just the ticket to cure what was ailing the Terps? Seems like a long time ago now, as that little jaunt through the land of sandy beaches and lackadaisical home crowds ultimately resulted in nothing more than a steaming mound of jumping jack squat, the second shovelful of which came today in Tallahassee.

Even during a late Terps comeback, a win just didn’t seem to be in the cards. The whole team seemed to lack energy, and had an atrocious  shooting night (38% overall, 27% from three). Maybe there was a Miami hangover effect.  As in that game, Adrian Bowie (14 points on 4-6 shooting, 4 assists, 4 boards) and Landon Milbourne (team-high 17 points on 7-13 shooting, 9 boards, 2 blocks) were the bright spots. Vasquez was awful…six points on 2-13 shooting, and an assist-to-turnover ratio of 1:1 (he had five of each).  In fact, his assist-to-personal fouls ratio was also 1:1.  These are not very good statistics.  (Although I will give him credit for giving up on his shot to try and create for others…it didn’t really work, but here, take some credit anyway.  Buy yourself some earmuffs.)

Gary Williams is nothing if not a fighter. It’s just that normally his teams need to hit rock bottom, get left for dead, back themselves into a corner, or whatever metaphor you want to use, before they really respond. Will this loss provide that wake-up call moment? Or will that come when they lose to Virginia next Tuesday and get booed off their home court? Or will it come when they lose by 20 at Cameron Indoor on the 24th? It’ll be interesting. Hopefully, the ship gets righted sooner rather than later, because right now she’s going down like an Airbus in the Hudson.  Boo-ya!