DURHAM, N.C. – Friday's news that point guard Pe'Shon Howard would miss the remainder of the season with a torn ACL brought with it an unwelcome sense of deja vu for the Terrapins men's basketball team, which must once again scramble to deal with a profound lack of backcourt depth.

Figuring it out this late isn't easy. Restarting the shuffle against No. 10 Duke?

Well, you saw that mess Saturday.

Some guys stepped up. Freshman guard Nick Faust had his best game ever as a Terp, posting 15 points and eight rebounds while neutralizing touted Duke guard Austin Rivers for large stretches of the game. Mychal Parker, whose production to this point has been somewhat of a disappointment, had a career-high 12 points.

But the guy the Terps needed to shoulder most of the load was nowhere to be found as the team mounted an ultimately unsuccessful second-half comeback in a 73-55 loss. Instead, Terrell Stoglin pouted on the bench, seething at coach Mark Turgeon for pulling him from the game.

After the game, of course, Stoglin made sure people wouldn't forget about him. He hadn't shown up on the court. Off it, he was far more visible.

"Loved sittin [on] that bench today. Smfh wow," Stoglin wrote on his Twitter account mere minutes after the Terps slunk off the court at Cameron Indoor Stadium. The post, and several others like it, were later deleted.

A few hours later, he (cough, Turgeon or captain Sean Mosley, cough) went back to Twitter to apologize for those words.

A hollow apology does nothing to change Saturday's events. Turgeon didn't take Stoglin out of the game, because Stoglin had all but checked out by then. With Howard unavailable, the Terps needed Stoglin to be as much a leader as he is a scorer. He was neither.

Stoglin put up just two points in 13 second-half minutes and spent the rest of the time feeling bad for himself on the bench.

The Blue Devils clearly sought to defuse Stoglin, the ACC's leading scorer, from the opening tip. They did. Duke double-teamed Stoglin for much of the game, forcing him to spread the ball around. Unfortunately for the Terps, Stoglin didn't take that too well. He jacked up 16 shots, many of them off-balance prayers in traffic.

"They just weren't going to let Terrell beat them," Turgeon said. "That's the reason [Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski] has won 900-something games. He's not a dummy. They weren't going to let Terrell beat them, and he can't handle it, and then we get frustrated because he throws out of the double-team and guys aren't making plays."

There's no doubting Stoglin has top-tier talent, and if this team's going to do anything without Howard — which is looking less and less likely — Turgeon's going to need Stoglin to be at his best.

But it's increasingly obvious that Stoglin just isn't ready to be the go-to guy. He says he wants the ball in crucial times, and he's proved that he wants to be the one taking big-time shots for the Terps. For every big game and every big shot, though, there's been plenty of disappearing acts and failed crunch-time shots.

Already this season, he's had a chance to change the outcome against Duke, North Carolina and Miami. He hasn't been able to do it.

The Terps depend on him. Turgeon clearly wants to depend on him.

They've already lost one leader to injury. They can't afford to lose the other to stupidity.

cwalsh@umdbk.com