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Maui Invitational

By BobW.

Arkansas Recap

“Forty Minutes of……..meh”

This isn’t your fathers Arkansas team, well more realistically, this isn’t the Arkansas of our high school days.  But hey it’s our first win against a school that has an actual state in it’s name.  Arkansas also is the only team in the SEC with a returning starter who was all conference, so not a bad win by any stretch of the imagination.  

For a while it looked like the Razorbacks wanted it a little more than we did, they built an 8 point lead with about 8 minutes left in the first half.  It was at this point where I began writing in my head a HUGE “Why I hate this team” column.  No passion, underachievers, play to the level of their competition, well I don’t want to give the rest away since I am sure I will be using that material later in the year when we drop a home game against Miami or someone.  However it is amazing how a solid second half of basketball can erase all those negatives. 

After falling down by 8, the Terps were able to battle back and take the lead going into halftime.  The second half looked like a horse race with each team taking the lead for a few moments at a time.  However, by the 9:00 minute mark the Terps began to get the upperhand.  Solid foul shooting sealed the deal for Maryland who walked away from the Maui Invitational with a 2-1 record.  And honestly going in, who could have asked for anything more than that?

D-7 MVP-  When the Sun has an article about how Chris McCray led the team to victory and then you name someone else the MVP controversy is sure to fallow (not that anyone reading really cares who wins the D-7 MVP award) but I am going with Ekene Ibekwe as my MVP.  Yeah, he fouled out, and the Terps didn’t pull away until he was on the bench, but while watching this game I said to myself, if I was an Arkansas fan and knew nothing about Maryland, I would be asking “Who is this Kenny Beckway kid?”.  Ibekwe shot 5-8 from the field, 6-6 from the line (my personal favorite stat for the big man, it looks like he really worked hard in the off season on his foul shooting), grabbed 6 boards, and had 3 blocks, and 4 steals!  A great all around effort for someone who stepped up his game in a match up that really mattered. 

Honorable Mention:  A lot of guys get the nod here.  Garrison 5-5 from the field, McCray obviously showed some great leadership and Gist also played like he should, but I don’t think any of those guys out shone Ibekwe.

Random Question of the Day:  After this year will the “Exree Hipp Award for Senior who showed the most Regression” be renamed after NCM?  If the early games are any indication this could be a close call.