Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

ACC-ya LATER
By Stephen Whyno
The Diamondback (U. Maryland)
03/09/2007

(CSTV U-WIRE) TAMPA, Fla. — Blazing a trail of wins through the ACC, the Terrapin men's basketball team got hot during a three-week span. The Terps knocked off higher-ranked opponents with sharp focus and let the momentum build up to gargantuan proportions.

Then, the fire was extinguished in two forgettable hours. Everything the Terps had accomplished by winning seven straight games came crashing down on them Thursday. In a result so unpredictable and so unexpected, the Terps struggled in almost every aspect of the game they had excelled in and lost to lowly Miami 67-62 in the first round of ACC tournament at the St. Pete Times Forum.

"We weren't taking the ball to the basket," senior guard D.J. Strawberry said. "We weren't passing the ball well. We just weren't playing like we always were. It's frustrating."

It was a complete disaster at times for the Terps (24-8), who could not shoot with any consistency from the field or the line, could not stop Miami's offense without fouling and could not even stay competitive in the rebounding battle. The confluence of on-court problems mixed with some intangible elements of individual play and too much hype knocked the Terps from their winning perch and out of the tournament in swift fashion.

Almost from the opening tip, the Hurricanes (12-19) set the rebounding agenda, out-muscling the Terps to an eight-rebound advantage and winning the race to loose balls on both ends of the court. Several times, Miami tapped in missed shots leading to a staggering 23 second-chance points.

"When you play hard defense, you get them to miss a shot and they end up getting a rebound, that really hurts," junior forward James Gist said. "It's like a blow to the body, and it takes the wind out of your defense."

The Terps' rebounding struggles mirrored the ones they had in their loss to Miami in January, when the Hurricanes completely dominated the glass. Thursday, the Terps couldn't maintain any kind of rebounding presence, and the rest of their game suffered.

Defensively, the Terps held Miami to only 35 percent shooting from the field, but those second-chance points came on tip-ins and layups and devastated the Terps. Offensively, the Terps weren't able to get into a shooting groove. And in an even more inexplicable area, the Terps shot 15-of-26 from the free-throw line, something that takes on even greater importance in a five-point loss.

Those misses certainly didn't help the Terps after they fell behind by as many as 15 points early in the second half. Strawberry said he and his teammates hadn't been down by that many so early in a game, adding they thought they were going to come back "pretty easy."

It wasn't easy, and the Terps became impatient. Players tried to do too much individually, driving the lane or taking ill-advised shots instead of looking for the open man.

"The first half, we didn't play as a team," freshman guard Eric Hayes said.

Though every player changed his sneakers at halftime in an attempt to make some psychological difference, it wasn't enough. The Terps cut Miami's lead to as little as one point, but could never overcome rebounding and turnover problems caused by the Hurricanes' zone defense and big men. When freshman guard Greivis Vasquez missed a layup and Hayes missed a 3-pointer in the final seconds, the upset was sealed and the winning streak suddenly over.

Vasquez said the Terps went into the game thinking they were the best team in the ACC. Asked to explain how they came out so flat, Vasquez said it was "too much attention."

Though he was noticeably flustered after the game, coach Gary Williams said nothing was stunning to him after all the games he has coached — not even this loss. But in his postgame press conference, he tried to put the defeat in some perspective with the NCAA tournament on the horizon, though the Terps' seeding will take a tumble.

"You hate to lose. You can't ever accept the loss. You just have to figure out what you did and move on from there," Williams said. "This doesn't mean anything come next week. Next week's next week, and we have to play better than we did today."

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