The way the University of Maryland men's basketball team closed the nonconference portion of its schedule against Charlotte in Baltimore Dec. 20 was reminiscent of the way the Terps' season has gone thus far. Maryland looked sluggish early -- at one point trailing by 10 to the 49ers -- before turning on the jets and securing an 88-72 win in the second half, though the Terps' margin of victory has typically been slimmer than that.
"We've been through this all year, being down during the beginning of the games because of how we approach games," star junior guard Melo Trimble said. "Once we went to halftime, Coach [Mark] Turgeon gave us an earful, and we went out there and responded the right way. We went out there and got stops, rebounded and made shots."
Maryland found itself down, 34-24, with a little more than four minutes remaining in the first half in part because the Terps didn't react particularly well to the array of defenses they saw. Charlotte bounced back and forth between man-to-man and zone principles and briefly mixed in full-court pressure for good measure in the first half.
