After the Maryland men’s basketball team secured its 21st win of the season against Ohio State Feb. 23, the last the thing head coach Mark Turgeon wanted to talk about was turnovers. Despite handling the Buckeyes down the stretch, the Terps committed 15 turnovers, the third game in a row they had committed at least that many.
“I don’t want to talk about it. Don’t ask me about it even though I’m talking about it now,” Turgeon said after the 72-62 win against Ohio State.
On Feb. 26, Turgeon remained reticent to discuss the issue that has plagued one of the youngest teams in the nation, jokingly not using the word “turnover” when fielding questions about his team’s recent play.
“The one thing — I didn’t want to mention it, you guys know what it is — the thing that’s bothering us with our offense, if we can correct that then we’re going to be really good,” he said.
All season, turnovers have been a weakness of a team that by any other metric is overachieving in a difficult conference. Maryland (21-7, 12-5 in the Big Ten) is currently averaging 13.4 turnovers per game, dead last in the Big Ten and 211th nationally.
The turnover rate has been exacerbated by the Terps’ inability to force turnovers. They rank second to last in the country with 9.57 turnovers forced per game, which makes their turnover margin of -3.8 (340th out of 350 NCAA Division I teams) an eyesore.
Turgeon admitted as much, but he pointed to his team’s defense (18th in the nation, per kenpom.com, a college hoops analytics site) and rebounding (39.8 per game, second in the Big Ten) as areas where they’ve been able to make up for it.
“I’ve done this long enough to know sometimes a whole season will go by and you can’t fix it exactly the way you want,” Turgeon said, “but this team has got a pretty big upside.”
Sophomore guard Darryl Morsell, who committed four turnovers in a loss to Michigan Feb. 16 and another four in a win at Iowa Feb. 19, took a learn-and-move-on approach.
“It’s all learning. I sat down and watched film the other day right after,” he said. “Look at what I did wrong, look at what play I could have made and I just tried to just learn from it. You can’t go back and change it so I just try to learn from it, be better in that situation, just improve on it.”
Turning the ball over at a high rate has not always guaranteed Maryland would lose. In fact, the Terps are 6-3 when they turn the ball over 15 or more times, per sports-reference.com. In their four other losses, their turnover totals have been 10 (Seton Hall), 12 (Michigan State), 12 (Wisconsin) and 14 (Virginia) — three of which are below their season average.
But at times, sloppy play has allowed teams to stick around, which has made games that should be over competitive again. For example, the Terps committed five turnovers in the second half against Wisconsin Jan. 14, allowing the Badgers to storm back from 21 points down to briefly take the lead. The Terps won, 64-60.
Most recently against Ohio State, Maryland committed three costly turnovers in the second half during a 17-5 Buckeyes run which cut a 16-point lead down to just two. Both of those games appear as victories in the box score, but on another night those games could have been losses.
“Turnovers cost games,” freshman guard Aaron Wiggins said. “It’s something that we work on. We watch film and we see every little mistake we make and we see what it is we need to work on to get better. Of course, preventing any type of turnovers is going to be better for the team [and] keeping teams from getting back into the game.”
Turgeon said he talks often about turnovers with his team, constantly trying to find ways to correct the errors.
“We talk about it. They know. And they’re as frustrated as I am with it,” he said, “but we’re still trying to figure out ways to win. … We can’t continue to do it.”
With only three regular-season games remaining, time is starting run out on fixing the issue that has at times prevented the Terps from reaching their full potential. As a rematch with No. 9 Michigan looms March 3 and the Big Ten tournament not long after that, taking care of the ball will play a big part in how far Maryland advances in that tournament and eventually the NCAA Tournament.
Maryland is 22nd in the country in offensive efficiency, per kenpom.com. If the Terps can clean up their turnovers, their offense can become even better at just the right time.
“All you can do is keep working on it. We’ll put together stretches where we are really good — a 15-minute stretch we’re really good and we don’t turn it over — and then we’ll have a stretch where we’re just throwing it to the other team,” Turgeon said. “You just keep trying to fix it and you keep trying to get better.”
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