The then, the now; that dog

Mike Burke

(Revised and reprinted from Friday’s editions in its entirety.)

The Maryland Terrapins are a team remindful of that favorite dog you felt, for his own good, needed to be put down the sooner the better. Yet he just wouldn’t let you.

Sure, he was flawed, but he had a heart and a will as big as the outdoors.

The Terps’ best player has the face of a Tennessee Williams play, and for all we know the life of one. Struggle and passion are written all over it, yet this is the face of the uniformed personnel of this team. It is the struggle and the passion of this University of Maryland team that now finds itself approaching its second game playing on the house’s money.

When I watch this team play, I think of the ongoing references to “that dog” in the movie Silverado, and I think of Bill Cosby when he described the difference between dogs and cats. He said the dog will go out of his way to do anything in the world to please you, whereas no cat that has ever lived has ever done anything to try to please anything but itself.

You come home from work and ask the cat, “Where are my slippers?” The cat looks up and says, “What?”

You come home from work and the dog is so happy to see you he comes running over with your slippers in his mouth and says, “Here are your slippers.”

“Not mine anymore,” you say; “you chewed them all up.”

“Can’t help it,” the dog says. “Have sharp teeth.”

The Maryland Terps, 84-71 winners over California in the first round of an NCAA tournament nobody, other than themselves and their coach, believed they would see the light of, are that team: They can’t help it.

The closer the shot, the harder it is to make. When it comes to a layup, they can’t close, because it’s hard to close when everybody wearing the other uniform is bigger than you are. The Terps are so small they can’t take it to the hole, because a foul won’t even come close to being called. And it shouldn’t be.

Yet like the dog, they bust their collective tail to help and to do the right thing. And to please you. But like the dog, they can’t help it. They have sharp teeth.

Oh, Gary Williams has coached cats at Maryland. But thank goodness he’s coaching a dog this year.

As for the face of the uniformed personnel, Grievis Vasquez, he played Friday’s game just as he’s played every game he’s ever played for Maryland — as though it’s his last game playing for Maryland. In the middle of a back-and-forth second half, when the Terps had the need for somebody to, it was Grievous who made Cal grieve, directing the Terps’ one-point deficit into a double-figure surplus.

Vasquez played the game at his pace. The ball was his; he wasn’t taking it and going home. He was home.

In fact, he was playing as though he might be looking for an NBA home next season, even though he’s still a junior and has one more year of eligibility remaining at Maryland. Will College Park be his home next year? Definitely. If Gary Williams is able to lure one-and-done guard Lance Stephenson, known in Brooklyn as The Difference Maker, to College Park. And at last look the Terps are one of the final three, along with Kansas and St. John’s, to land the difference.

Who wants one-and-done, you say? Don’t recall hearing anybody tell Steve Francis he wasn’t welcome; and that one-and-done, safe to say, didn’t go too badly. But then here in Cumberland, we were spoiled. We had Francis for two.

The Terps were simply splendid Friday, winning a game they didn’t really have to win to make this season one of the most pleasing ones in Williams’ 20 in College Park. They didn’t commit turnovers; they shot okay, even though they really can’t shoot; and they mixed up their presses perfectly, disrupting streak-shooting Cal’s rhythm, then giving it all the gas down the stretch to advance to the second round of the West Region against No. 2 seed Memphis, a team the Terps have no business beating.

But then this is a tournament the Terps had no business playing in.

Next season? The then? Forget it. Just concentrate on the now.

Maryland continues to play with the house’s money.

Enjoy it.

The Terps sure are.

Just as that favorite dog of yours did every single one of those flawed days he had no business being alive.

Mike Burke is sports editor of the Cumberland Times-News. Contact Mike Burke at mburke@times-news.com.