Faust, men's basketball keep it clean in win

Fed up with his team's nearly two dozen turnovers in a Nov. 4 exhibition against Northwood, Terrapins men's basketball coach Mark Turgeon last week introduced a new saying to his squad's lexicon: "second loss of ball."

It sounded like nonsense at first to the Terps. But a handful of sprints later, they understood. Every time a player committed two turnovers in practice, the team lined up from the baseline and sprinted to one end of the court and back.

Did it work?

"Oh, yes," forward James Padgett said. "Definitely."

It showed Sunday night in the Terps' season-opening win against UNC-Wilmington. After they started the game with two turnovers in the first three possessions and seven before the 10-minute mark, the Terps settled into their offense.

Turgeon's saying wasn't anything new — he learned it as an assistant under current North Carolina coach Roy Williams while at Kansas decades ago — but with his team lacking a true point guard, he decided it was worth dusting off.

"All of a sudden, when you're running for the second [turnover], you become very aware and you start making the easy play," Turgeon said. "I think it's really helped us. As the week goes on, we ran a lot less sprints."

When reporters brought up the new practice philosophy Saturday, guard Sean Mosley couldn't help but let out a huge smile.

"I just don't like running as much," Mosley said. "It's one of those discipline things. It's a great thing for us because we're taking care of the ball more than we were before.

"As soon as you make that second turnover, he just says, ‘Baseline.'"

After guard Pe'Shon Howard went down with a broken left foot nearly three weeks ago, Turgeon was left without a true ball handler on the Terps' active roster. He decided to start guard Terrell Stoglin at point in the team's exhibition game against Northwood, but the sophomore committed five turnovers and had trouble finding his own scoring touch as the team's conductor.

So the first-year coach turned to Nick Faust, his highly touted freshman shooting guard, to run the offense in his first collegiate game.

"I know everyone's going to make a big deal about it, but it's not a big deal," Turgeon said Saturday. "It's what we think we need to do."

Faust wasn't impressive offensively in his first game, taking just five shots and finishing with seven points. But after committing two turnovers in the game's first six minutes, the freshman didn't have another the rest of the way, and he gave the Terps a boost on the defensive end with his disruptive length.

"I thought Nick was just OK tonight," Turgeon said. "I thought he was pressing. He shot some ill-advised shots, which we've been working on."

But with Howard likely out until at least January, and Stoglin entrenched as the team's go-to scorer, Faust seems likely to be the team's go-to point guard, no matter how many growing pains he endures — or sprints the team runs.

"He's doing a great job at running this team as a point guard as a freshman," Mosley said. "No matter what year you are, you can step up and make big plays for us."

ceckard@umdbk.com