Match Thread - PSU vs. MD: Thurs. Oct 3, 2024 6:00 p.m. ET

As seems to be usual with this PSU team, which one will show up.  At their best, they should trounce Maryland, but Maryland tends to play their best against PSU, probably because of the Adam Hughes connection and PSU doesn't always play their best. As someone mentioned in another thread, the PSU team is in the process of developing experience and poise, which will probably take a while with 3 freshman starting and a junior first time starter, and fans will therefore need to be patient. I think the 'good' PSU team will show up because of the low energy match against MSU, but it's a fools errand to predict the future Then again, there is always the possibility of PSU looking forward to the OR match the next day, and not respecting the Maryland team.  One of the things that RR always said, "You have to respect the team that you are playing."  When a team doesn't, frequently bad things happen.

I would like to see Adam Hughes do well, but Maryland don't seem to have progressed much recently with a conference record of 7-13  3 years in a row. Adam seems to have problems recruiting, which is usually the case when a team is in the lower 3rd of the conference.  Then again, Shane Davis, formerly coach at Northwester (for 8 years), who had great credentials in the NCAA men' side (coaching Loyola to 2 consecutive NCAA titles), but couldn't get enough good recruits to improve the program, and, I don't think that his record was much much better than prior NW coach Keylor Chan.  Course, he probably had a bit of an excuse as it's harder to recruit for Northwester as their academic standards are so high, but still.