Maryland Coach Mark Turgeon wishes he could pinpoint the root of his team’s poor three-point shooting as of late, but he’s already eliminated one potential source.
Wisconsin, which will visit No. 2 Maryland on Saturday night in College Park, reportedly practiced with the Under Armour ball on Thursday. Turgeon weighed in on the matter Friday, telling reporters that every college team deals with the issue on the road. Because the NCAA doesn’t require programs to use a specific brand, visiting players are often left with brief shootarounds and pregame warmups to acclimate to different leather compositions.
“I don’t think it’s a story. We’ve played at Nebraska and Michigan with the Adidas balls and it took us a while to get used to it. It is what it is. It’s the way college basketball is set up. You go play here, you’ve got Nike balls, you play here it’s Sterling balls, you play there it’s Adidas balls,” Turgeon said. “It’s the way the game is set up. Until someone says we’re all going to play with the same ball … I just think people are making more out of it then they should.”
Maryland guard Rasheed Sulaimon said Friday that he doesn’t prefer one brand over another, while junior forward Robert Carter Jr. said that he’s grown used to a variety of brands. He didn’t have any issues with the Sterling balls used by Wisconsin in Maryland’s 63-60 win over the Badgers last month, adding that players have ample time to adjust during walkthroughs and pregame warmups.
“As long as it’s circular. You’ve been shooting the ball long enough, you adjust,” Carter Jr. said.
While Turgeon refused to pin his team’s recent outside shooting struggles on different brands of balls – Maryland has shot below 30 percent from three-point range in six of its last eight Big Ten games – he admitted Friday that home teams carry a certain “edge” with their preferred brand. He also defended the Under Armour ball.
“I always feel like when you play with a different ball than everyone else, it’s an edge. We played with ‘The Rock’ in some places. I think it’s an edge for those teams that use it every day,” Turgeon said. “It’s an edge for us here. We love the ball.”
