There are just some days it doesn’t pay to go to Durham, and yesterday was certainly one of those days for the Maryland Terrapins.
There are some days you just have to tip your hat to the other guy, admit that for one day he was the better man and then go about your remaining business. That, too, is what Maryland must do as Duke, looking more and more like Duke these days, was the better man on this day, the day of Mike Krzyzewski’s 1,000th game as the Duke head coach, not to mention his 63rd birthday. And actually, this might have been the day to catch the Devils as they were just 5-4 on Coach K birthdays entering yesterday’s game.
The Blue Devils simply prevented too many match-up problems for the Terps, and nowhere was it more evident than on the glass, and, in fact, the 44-37 rebounding edge Duke held yesterday is quite misleading. The Terps were beaten on the boards by much worse than that, doing a horrible job boxing out, and once again allowing Brian Zoubek, making his first start for Duke, look like Bill
Russell. Zoubek had 17 rebounds and scored most of his 16 points on uncontested follows.
And for the second straight year, Duke’s guards met Maryland’s guards close to halfcourt, taking Greivis Vasquez and Eric Hayes far from their normal shooting zones. And did anybody see Landon Milbourne or Sean Mosley? Not yesterday.
Bottom line is Maryland got beat to the glass and beaten on the glass and shot a horrible 2-for-13 from three-point range in a game that pitted the top two three-point shooting teams in the ACC.
All in all, it was a good day to be a Dookie as the Cameron Crazies serenaded Coach K on his birthday and Duke emerged as the sole first-place team in the ACC.
The Terps? The Terps were just never in it. They didn’t seem to be anything as a matter of fact, just there with glazed expressions, looking more like a team that was finishing a three-game in a five-day stretch rather than a team beginning one after having the last five days off.
Things will not get easier as Maryland will return home Monday to play its make-up game with Virginia (as of Saturday evening televised only on ESPN360), which promises to be a pain-in-the-arse game, giving them just one day of rest/preparation before they head off to Raleigh to play N.C. State. And the Wolfpack has to consider itself due, having never beaten the Terps in the four years
Sidney Lowe has been their head coach.
Coming in, it wasn’t unrealistic to think Maryland could have beaten Duke yesterday, but, really, it wasn’t likely. The fact is, the Terps entered this stretch needing to win two out of the three, and while that still applies they can’t be looking at any
picture bigger than the
Virginia game.
As for the Duke game,
yesterday’s gone, as the old song goes. The Terps need to snap out of it and make sure yesterday was an aberration, not a habit just beginning to take on a life of its own. With the senior leadership that is on this team, and with a guy like Mosley who might as well be a senior with two more years of eligibility, it’s difficult to believe that is going to be the case.
Contact Mike Burke at mburke@times-news.com.
Mike Burke - Sports
Related Photos
A train wreck Terps would be wise to walk away from
- Mike Burke - Sports
-
-
Happy birthday, Brooks
Today is Brooks Robinson’s birthday. That’s right, good ol’ No. 5 is 75 years young, a term the great Chuck Thompson used all of the time, and a term that, even as a child, drove me up the wall when Chuck would use it to send birthday greetings to somebody who had just turned 100.
-
How to e-mail (or phone) us your games
It will remain one of the great mysteries of my life (until I hit the lottery, that is) that seemingly grown men and women who have the mental capacity to sit at a computer, compose an e-mail and send it, cannot look at the little league/softball game reports that appear daily in the Times-News and duplicate the format we require for publication.
-
The DH, the rook, ‘old school’ and the Codes
Baseball, to say the least, is presently buzzing in the Baltimore-Washington corridor, as the Orioles streaked to baseball’s best record through the first 29 games, while the Nationals seem to be every bit the contender they were said to have been, sitting atop the National League East as of yesterday.
-
Take me out to the coin collector’s?
You know, you try to do the right things, but sometimes it just doesn't pay off in the end. And that's fine.
-
We’d have taken Hines back, too
The Mega Millions madness is over for now, and that’s a good thing, because, frankly, I’m a little bit ashamed of all of you. Really. If you could have just seen yourselves and the way you’ve been acting these past 10 days, with nothing but greed soaring from your eyes, you’d be embarrassed, too. It’s as the great Charles E. Lattimer used to say (to me quite a bit, actually), “(Jiminy Crickets), look at yourself, son.”
-
With no rule, there is no spirit to break
Three days after paying a king’s ransom for the No. 2 pick in the NFL draft and the right to select Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III (or, if Jim goes completely Irsay on us, Stanford quarterback Oliver Luck), the Washington Redskins were informed by Commissioner Vernon Wormer that they had violated double-secret probation, bringing to mind a piece of Redskins history that would produce one of the great lines in sports.
-
No need to wonder what ACIT means to Karcher
This weekend’s 52nd Alhambra Catholic Invitational Tournament will mean a great many things to a great many people, from the players who will be competing, to their coaches, schools, family and friends, and to the fans who come to see some of the best high school basketball in the country.
-
Shot clock should help loaded ACIT to light it up
The idea had been floating in Joe Carter’s thoughts since last year’s ACIT final between DeMatha and Benedictine, when DeMatha head coach Mike Jones, to help alleviate his team’s injury and foul issues, slowed the pace of the game in the first half of the title game his Stags would win, 53-43.
-
Senior Day honor is the least Mosley deserves
COLLEGE PARK — Sean Mosley will be honored at Comcast Center today on Senior Day prior to Maryland’s game against Virginia, and it’s difficult to believe it’s been four years since we got our first glimpse of the 6-foot-4 guard out of Baltimore’s St. Frances Academy when he was the Most Outstanding Player in the 2008 Alhambra Catholic Invitational Tournament field.
-
Somewhere over the rainbow starts here
During a break in the program Sunday night, former Pittsburgh Pirates slugger Bob Robertson sat at a table backstage sharing some stories from the day when he played some of the finest defensive first base and hit some of the longest home runs in the major leagues in helping the Bucs to the 1971 world championship.
- More Mike Burke - Sports Headlines
-
