Inside Scoop

After playing a career-low five minutes against Virginia Tech on Saturday while dealing with muscle spasms in his back and shoulder, sophomore guard Nick Faust has sat out the past two practices for Maryland.

That hasn't put a damper on Mark Turgeon's hope that Faust will be able to go against Florida State on Wednesday, though.

“I’ll be shocked and disappointed if he doesn’t play Wednesday," Turgeon said Monday on the ACC teleconference. "I think he’s gotten a lot of good care and I think he’s feeling better. I hope tomorrow he’ll be full go in practice and ready to go on Wednesday."

Faust has received treatment and rode the stationary bike the past two days. And even though Turgeon remains confident about his status for Wednesday's game, he warned things could change after tomorrow's practice.

"I expect him tomorrow to go full tilt and then be ready to go on Wednesday," Turgeon said. "But I might answer that question differently tomorrow after practice. We’ll see.”

.... Here's more from Turgeon during Monday's teleconference.

On if he believes Maryland is as good as its record or its ranking.

“We’re as good as our record. That’s who you are. I don’t care about the rankings. We’ve got plenty of time to prove ourselves on that. We’ve got a tough league schedule a head of us. I don’t worry about all that. We took care of our schedule. You see teams that lose games they should win. We didn’t do that. We took care of it. Most importantly, we had young guys getting better through that stretch … Let people say what they want. We have plenty of chances to prove ourselves over the next eight weeks.”

On Florida State

“I haven’t watched a lot. I watched a little last night and some this morning. [Coach] Leonard [Hamilton's] teams are always going to guard you and be physical. Obviously, [Michael] Snaer can really score. [Ian] Miller is getting healthy and he can make them go too. They’re going to guard you. They’re going to execute and they’re going to be physical, which we need. We haven’t been as physical as we need to be.”

On Jake Layman's minutes moving forward

Going forward, I don’t know if Jake will get 20 in every game, but he’s capable of playing 20 in games. It will be a little harder when Nick’s back in the rotation to get the minutes.”