Vasquez, Milbourne help offset rebounding woes in Maryland's 72-59 win over FAU

As pesky as Florida Atlantic proved to be Sunday afternoon at Comcast Center, the Owls were never going to catch up to -- much less surpass -- Maryland on the scoreboard. The Terrapins were too efficient on offense to be bothered with entertaining FAU's comeback attempts.

Issues? Sure, Maryland experienced its share en route to a 72-59 win over FAU (5-7). The Terrapins played without sophomore guard Sean Mosley, who missed the game with a sprained left ankle. Maryland (8-3) also struggled to defend the perimeter and rebound with authority over an opponent not known to be particularly strong in either category.

But on a night when the Terrapins shot 46.4 percent from the field and executed their half-court offense smoothly, such defensive struggles could be described -- at least for now -- as annoyances rather than full-blown deficiencies.

"We're playing pretty good defense," Maryland Coach Gary Williams said. "In other words, overall our defense is pretty good with what teams are shooting against us. We have two weaknesses: Three-point shooting, you know, 8 for 19 is too good. You know, you can't give that up. And then the other thing is rebounding. As you can see from the stat sheet, it's pretty obvious that that is a problem right now. We tend to correct both those things, and hopefully we can be improved by Wednesday [when Maryland hosts William & Mary]."

Indeed, FAU shot 31.5 percent from the field Sunday, but the Owls connected on 42.1 percent of their three-point attempts and outrebounded the Terrapins, 49-45. Rebounding has been a persistent shortcoming for Maryland this season, which on the surface is surprising in that the current roster contains more front-court size and depth than did last season's.

By the time Maryland had advanced to the second round of the 2009 NCAA tournament, the undersized Terrapins had found a way to survive on the boards. Nine months later, even with the freshman additions of 6-foot-10 Jordan Williams and 6-8 James Padgett, Maryland barely has been able to do that.

"You can just tell it's an attitude thing because we're a little bit bigger than we were last year, but last year we were a way better rebounding team, and I think that's because we were focused on that a lot more last year," said senior forward Landon Milbourne, who finished with 19 points and five rebounds. "I think it's just a small problem. I mean, it's a small problem to fix because we know exactly what it is. It's just a matter of us doing it."

Milbourne said the Terrapins are trying to see, absorb and gauge too much information in the paint.

"I think we're just trying to see where the ball's going, see how hard we can play, see how hard we've got to go in there," he said. "You can't really judge that. Sometimes you just got to go."

In essence, the Maryland post players are thinking too much, a problem that the team's star player recently overcame himself. Senior guard Greivis Vasquez tallied 26 points on 12-of-20 shooting from the field against FAU. Vasquez's performance Sunday marked the second time in his career that he had recorded at least 20 points in three straight games.

Three weeks ago, Vasquez lamented his play to that point in the season, saying that he needed to clear his mind and return to the form that enabled him to earn national recognition. As the Terrapins near ACC play, he appears to have done so.

"I really just believe he's slowed down a little bit on a couple of things he was trying to do, and when you do that sometimes the court just seems like it opens up and there's more room to operate," Gary Williams said. "We're not doing that much differently offensively. I think Greivis has just, you know, really, really picked it up."

Led by Vasquez and senior guard Eric Hayes -- who finished with nine of the team's 21 assists -- Maryland operated crisply in its half-court sets for much of the game. Afterward, however, players kept returning their focus to the other end of the court.

"Well, we passed the ball pretty well today," said Vasquez, who also registered eight rebounds and five assists. "We were looking for each other. I think our offense, it has been pretty good for us. We've just got to get better defensively."