Mike Burke
Cumberland Times-News
— There they were, dressed in their virgin-white uniforms instead of those ugly gold and red ones, the uniforms they had worn through most of the second half of the season as well as through their soon-to-be kapoot seven-game winning streak. And true to uniform, the Maryland Terrapins on Friday played as though they were in virgin territory, dropping a dreadful 69-64 decision to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, a team with an NBA-sized front line and a midget-league IQ.
You can look at this two ways: The Terps were bound to cool off, so the first round of the ACC Tournament was the best time for them to do it, given they are already assured of having, at the very least, a No. 6 seed in the upcoming NCAA Tournament. Or you can look at it the way I am looking at it: Maryland squandered one helluva chance to win the fourth ACC championship in school history. The ACC this year was as winnable for Maryland as it’s ever going to be.
As hot as the Terps have been in the second half of the season, this isn’t the 2002 version of the Terps who were almost fortunate to be sent home from the ACC tournament in the early rounds to avoid injury and fatigue before making their eventual national-championship run. This Maryland team is good, but not that good. They could go as far as the Elite Eight, but that seems to be a stretch.
Guard play is huge in the NCAA tournament, and sure enough, the Terps are loaded with good guards. But post play is huge in the NCAAs as well, and as good as freshman Jordan Williams has become, and will become, he is the only viable weapon in the post Maryland has as poor Landon Milbourne seems to be so messed up in the head these days you don’t know what to expect to see from him.
Georgia Tech had two things going for it Friday night. They were highly motivated (okay, highly ticked off) they had let one get away in College Park in February when it took two impossible last-second shots by Maryland, with only one of them counting, to pull off a thrilling win. Perhaps you recall reading here the day after game, “If you saw the Terps-Georgia Tech game yesterday from Comcast Center, you feel pretty strongly about two things: Maryland doesn’t want to play Georgia Tech again until the Yellow Jackets’ entire front line goes pro ... Which hopefully will be by the time the ACC Tournament begins March 11.”
Yes, that is the biggest thing Tech has going for it: That enormous front line, led by Gani Lawi and Derrick Favors, making them the worst possible draw for the Terps in the ACC field. How do the Yellow Jackets ever lose a game? Particularly in the ACC? Well, they’re not real bright, as we once again saw Friday night as they nearly blew what would have been the second-largest lead to be blown in ACC tournament history.
It wouldn’t be entirely fair to say point guard Iman Shumpert outplayed Maryland’s ACC Player of the Year Greivis Vasquez, but go ahead and say it if you wish. On Friday we saw Greivis at his grievous worse, topped off by being stripped by Shumpert in the final moments, preventing Maryland from any chance of tying the game.
But then Maryland, after pressing and trapping its way 17 points back from a 19-point deficit, had countless opportunities to tie or go ahead in this game, and if they had, it appeared victory would be theirs as the knucklehead Yellow Jackets looked as wobbly as Foreman in the eighth round against Ali. But Maryland couldn’t come up with the knockout punch as Tech’s size and outside quickness either altered or rushed most of the Terps’ shots.
The Terps, after their longest layoff of the season, came out as flat as week-old beer, and Greivis seemed more intent on living up to his Player of the Year billing than letting the flow of the game come to him. He appeared to be pressing, trying to do too much, the entire evening. To use Cal Ripken Sr.’s analogy from another sport, there’s no such thing as a seven-run homer, son. Just let it come naturally.
So as the Terps gather around their TVs tonight to find out where they’ll be headed this week, they’ll have one more time to reflect on what was and what could have been. Instead of the the No. 3 or No. 4 seed they would have likely landed if they would have at least reached the ACC final (and as screwy as this year’s tournament has been?), they’ll likely land a No. 5 or No. 6 somewhere out west.
It’s been a great season for Maryland so far, and who knows? In a couple of weeks Terps fans might not even remember the ACC tournament, depending on how their team does in the NCAAs. But that’s not likely. The Terps let one get away, and they know it. The ACC was soooo winnable this year.
Maryland has lived and died with Greivis Vasquez for most of the last four years. Friday night marked the the first time in an awful long time they have died. Now it’s really do or die.
Mike Burke is sports editor of the Cumberland Times-News.com. Write to him at mburke@times-news.com.
