Maryland Basketball: James Padgett Pushing To Become Terps' New Power Forward?

Maryland power forward James Padgett has added 10 pounds of beef and some new post moves since signing with the Terps in 2009.  His role with the team could be about to get a lot meatier, too.

If you're a Maryland fan, you probably know the book on Padgett by now. He's a sophomore, he’s from Brooklyn, he likes to bang and do the dirty work, decent rebounder, solid defender, needs more offensive game, has trouble consistently hitting the rim from the free throw line.

Last year, Padgett showed early flashes, but his minutes fell to just a shade under five minutes per game during the 19-game ACC part of the schedule. 

Why? For one, he was battling injuries.  Two, he just wasn’t strong offensively. If you’re gonna be a banger, you have to be able to make the other team pay when they foul you. Padgett couldn’t do that.  Third, he was a little slight of frame for a four, clocking in around 215 during his recruiting period.

Now, however, he seems to have addressed all these concerns. He is fully healthy, and is now listed at 225, which leads me to presume that he put on more weight, which was a stated goal of head coach Gary Williams.  He has also worked on his offense, though that will obviously take time.

Furthermore, Williams has signaled he wants Padgett to be more involved. But in three games thus far, Padgett has averaged about 10 minutes per game--way down from his 18.6 in the first three games last year.

So given his improvements and Gary's desire to get him out there, why isn't it happening? 

To be certain, coaches are tinkering with different lineups this time of year. But the real wild card here is Dino Gregory, Maryland's incumbent at power forward. 

Last year, Dino was arguably just as uneven as Padgett, but at least he was a known quantity—an important consideration given that they were in win-now mode.  This year, there is no such consideration.  Padgett is younger and less experienced than Gregory, but he is also longer, taller, stronger, tougher, and (I believe) more skilled.

So it is slightly frustrating to watch the arrival of a whole new season’s worth of training wheel games, with Gregory still getting the much larger portion of the minutes.

Maybe it’s because Padgett hasn’t advanced the way coaches thought he would. Maybe you can chalk it up to “it’s just three games.”  But the guess here is that it has more to do with the fact that Dino Gregory’s class year clicked over from “junior” to “senior,” thus triggering the famous Gary Williams upperclassman loyalties that are simultaneously so endearing and maddening.

Bottom line:  Padgett is not Derrick Coleman, but he is probably better than Dino Gregory. So far this season, James is averaging 4.7 points, 2 rebounds, and 0.3 blocks in 10 minutes per game.  Gregory is averaging 4.7 points, 4 rebounds, and 2 blocks (along with four personal fouls) in 23 minutes per game.  Who would you say is more productive per minute of action thus far?

If the trend holds, Gary Williams won’t be able to deny Padgett forever. He might have to work a little harder to overcome Gary’s senior bias, but I am hereby speculating that, eventually, this thing will hit a tipping point. I don’t think Padgett will supplant Gregory in the starting lineup, but by season’s end he could be getting more minutes.  My personal hope is that it happens sooner rather than later.

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