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Mark Turgeon Having Retention Problems & A Maryland Football Note

More transfers would shellshock Terrapin basketball

Mark Turgeon's program is a real head scratcher right now.
Mark Turgeon's program is a real head scratcher right now.
Mitch Stringer-USA TODAY Sports

Now that Maryland's not an ACC team anymore - the Terps don't leave officially until July, but basketball is done and that's our primary concern here - it's not nearly as much fun to make fun of the program and we don't pay nearly as much attention as we used to back when it was the ACC's Alaska instead of the Big Ten's Mississippi.

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But still: what the hell?

Maryland just lost three players - Roddy Peters, Shaquille Cleare and Nick Faust, to (we think) Georgetown, Texas and Oregon State.

Now there are strong rumors that Seth Allen and Charles Mitchell want out too.

We don't know what's behind the rumors or if they are true, although the Baltimore Sun reports that Allen told several teammates he was gone.

No matter how you slice it, when - ok, if - you have five players transfer out in a few weeks, there are serious problems with your program.

We also came across this very interesting chart about the recruiting race in the Big Ten.

Turns out the members of the Cornfed Conference, perhaps a bit sick of SEC dominance, are seriously upping what they're willing to spend on recruiting.

This may be a place where the declining population of the traditional Big Ten schools hurts, perhaps most of all with Michigan and Michigan State. Neither school can recruit Detroit the way it was once recruited because, well, Detroit is a far cry from what it once was.

The Spartans raised the recruiting budget from $383,500  in 2011 to $627,600 in 2013.

The Wolverines have gone up from $577,630 in 2011 to $644,492 in 2013.

All numbers are rounded.

The Illini budget has gone up 246,600 in the same time period.

That's a monthly increase of $10,275.

In 2011, Maryland spent $266,958.

For an athletic department which is still not out of hock, and which will have (by far) the worst football facilities in the Big Ten, that's a huge hurdle to overcome.

The Big Ten money will come soon, to be sure, but Maryland is still starting from way behind.