Terps focused on limiting Happ as they look to beat Badgers at home
COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- The frontcourt continues to thin out for Maryland (15-9, 4-7 Big Ten), and the latest injury to a Terps big couldn’t come at a worse time as Mark Turgeon’s team gets set to face yet another dominant Big Ten center when unanimous preseason all-conference selection Ethan Happ and Wisconsin (10-14, 3-8) come to College Park Feb. 4.
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Terps senior center Michal Cekovsky did not make the trip to West Lafayette, Ind., for Maryland’s last outing against Purdue due to a heel injury on his surgically repaired left foot. That same injury is expected to keep Cekovsky out of the Terps lineup Sunday afternoon, which would make stopping the 6-foot-10 Happ and the Badgers that much more of a challenge for Turgeon’s squad.
“I don’t want to discredit anyone else because there are a lot of great centers in our league but [Cekovsky] goes down and we play the two best centers in the league back to back, which makes it really hard on us,” Turgeon said. “So we’ll throw a lot of different things at [Happ], but Bruno [Fernando] has to get him, Sean [Obi] has to try to guard him. I’m sure Josh [Tomaic] will have a shot. We might even try Darryl [Morsell] on him and just try to help Darryl out as much as we can.”
Turgeon added that Cekovsky injured himself in practice last week when he came down on his heel the wrong way. He said there is no timetable set at the moment for the Slovakia native’s return.
“He’s day-by-day,” Turgeon said. “Structurally he’s fine. He’s got a little bruise down there on his heel. So we’ll see how much better he can get but it’s a day-by-day thing. It’s his surgically repaired ankle so he was a little bit cautious with it.”
But even with Cekovsky out of the lineup, Turgeon knows the Terps have to find a way to slow down Happ in order to be successful on Sunday. Leading the Badgers in scoring (17.4 ppg), rebounding (8.5 rpg) and assists (3.9 apg), it’s easy to see why the junior was a unanimous All-Big Ten selection entering the season. And while Happ stuffing the stat sheet seems inevitable, the Terps are focused on making every point, rebound and assist he gets as difficult as possible.
“It’s not really about stopping [Happ],” Terps freshman guard Darryl Morsell said. “You can’t really stop an individual like him. He’s just a talented individual. He’s going to get his, regardless. But as a team we have to slow him down. That’s really what it is. We have to work together as a team and be on the same page at all times, regardless of what we’re doing, and just try to slow him down and make all of his shots as tough as possible.”
Morsell is perhaps the biggest wildcard that Turgeon will throw at Happ, and the Baltimore native has proven to be a solid defensive specialist for the Terps this season. And while Morsell hasn’t necessarily been asked to guard a player like Happ yet in his college career, he’s not shying away from the tall task.
“I just like doing whatever to help the team win,” Morsell said. “If Coach Turgeon feels like I need to guard [Happ] in order to help the team then that’s what I’ve got to do. I embrace it as a challenge. Growing up, I always wanted to guard the other team’s best player or their more talented guys, and I know Ethan Happ is one of the more talented guys in this league so I just take it as a challenge.”
Another integral piece of the puzzle for the Terps when it comes to stopping Happ will be Morsell’s fellow freshman Bruno Fernando, who has had an issue staying out of foul trouble at times this season but showed in Maryland’s last outing against Purdue just how productive he can be when he’s able to stay on the court.
Fernando finished with 20 points and 10 rebounds against the Boilermakers, but still picked up four fouls throughout the game, many of which were preventable according to his coach.
“Three of his four fouls [Fernando] could have prevented,” Turgeon said. “So that’s what we have to change. He changed that the last seven minutes and started to play smarter. But hopefully with maturation he continues to play smart the rest of the year.”
Stopping Happ is a major key to the game for the Terps on Sunday, but Maryland is also focused on eliminating mental mistakes and finishing games stronger than it has during the recent stretch in which it has lost its last three games and five of its last six.
“We’ve just got to finish,” Morsell said. “We’ve got to limit our mistakes as a team and just finish strong.”
Terps sophomore wing Kevin Huerter expects the Terps to implement a similar game plan as the one they rolled out against the Boilermakers, playing four guards and rotating Fernando, Joshua Tomaic and Sean Obi at center. And with Maryland returning to Xfinity Center to play in front of its home crowd on Super Bowl Sunday, the Terps are hoping to get back in the win column and spark a late-season run.
“Coming back playing here at home, we’re going to try to get off to a good start like we did against Michigan State and come out with a lot of energy,” Huerter said. “Hopefully in the game we want it more than the other team and make the little plays that it seems like a couple teams have made at the end of games against us.”
Tip-off in College Park between Maryland and Wisconsin is set for 1:00 p.m. EST. The game will be televised on CBS.