Story By: Richard Thomas
Photos By: Sol Tucker
College Park, MD–
After many years of checking out Midnight Madness, one on the day after every other team has had theirs, well that’s a little different. It is usually the one day that college basketball fans look forward to every October, but tonight, it just got a little different tonight in College Park. The Maryland Terps were the only local hoops program that had their celebration on Saturday night instead of Friday. Perhaps that is because they wanted to pack Xfinity Center to see their top ranked team first hand and lets say they look pretty good, both the men and the women. Great ready Big 10, these squads are coming for you.
All eyes are Sophomore Melo Tremble and transfer Rasheed Sulaimon, who according to Terps Head Coach are two of the best players in the country this season. After a 26 win season, the Terps can only hope for a repeat of the best season by a Freshman in school history last year. Suliamon, brings his talents from Duke and is possibly the missing piece to take them to the Final Four this season.
Other players to watch that seemed to get a few cheers tonight were Freshman Diamond Stone, who rocked the boards with a thunderous dunk and ovation.
As for the Hoyas, their Hoya Madness was nothing less than a showstopper last night. On Thursday, the team announced the 2 Chainz would be performing along with all of their other activities that included a intersquad scrimmage with both the men’s and women’s teams playing each other as members of blue and grey and appearances by Hoya greats Dikembe Mutombo, Jaren Jackson and Reggie Williams to judge their dunk contest.
An interesting fact from tonight was that Née Tauheed Epps, a young 2 Chainz was a basketball star at North Clayton High in College Park, Ga. and played one season (1996-97) of college ball at Alabama State. Jahidi White scored a team-high 14 points in Georgetown’s 75-37 win over Epps and the Hornets in November of that season.
Interesting enough, the Hoyas will face the Terps in a month in College Park in which is sure to be packed house of fans from all around the DMV.