Maryland Basketball: Does Terrell Stoglin Have a Shot at First-Team All-ACC?

At the start of the season, plenty of fans outside College Park could reasonably have asked, “Who is Terrell Stoglin?” Now, the biggest question about Maryland’s sophomore shooting guard is whether anyone can stop him from earning first-team All-Conference honors in the talent-rich ACC.

Stoglin is averaging 20.9 points a game, nearly double his output from last season. Not only is he leading the ACC in scoring, he ranks ninth in all of Division I.

For all that, Stoglin isn’t exactly a shoo-in for top All-ACC honors. In the first place, he’s fighting preseason projections that saw two other shooting/combo guards, Duke’s Seth Curry and Miami’s Malcolm Grant, earn preseason All-Conference spots without a mention of any Maryland player.

Just because Stoglin has, in fact, outplayed both of them, doesn’t mean that the voters will necessarily be eager to admit that they overlooked him.

Stoglin is also regrettably one-dimensional, making no particular contributions as a defender or a passer. The fact that he’s taken twice as many shots as any other Terrapin can make him look selfish—rather unfairly—and might cause some voters to prefer the similarly one-note Kendall Marshall for his 9.5 assists per game.

Lastly, Stoglin’s candidacy is almost certain to be hurt by Maryland’s also-ran status in the conference. He has been, after all, the only thing keeping the Terps afloat for much of this season, so the team’s performance is necessarily going to reflect on his own play more than it would for many other ACC guards.

Of course, by the same token, if Maryland manages to beat the odds by playing its way into the NCAA Tournament, it would all but guarantee Stoglin a spot on the first team.

By no means are any of the above reasons good enough to justify excluding a player who has outscored everyone else in the conference by at least 3.5 points per game. Stoglin unquestionably deserves to be on the All-ACC first team, but that’s no guarantee that he’ll see his name selected at season’s end.