Everything is to the wire with this Maryland team, everything. There's no deficit they can't erase, no lead they can't squander. It's fun. It's a thrill a minute riding with the Terps. It could kill Gary Williams by the end of the weekend, but what more could the rest of us ask? Down 19 at halftime? No problem. Down 12 to Duke with 3 1/2 minutes to play? Don't sweat it. Up 11 on Texas-El Paso? Why not take it right to the buzzer? You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much melodrama in March.
To start the NCAA tournament, and nearly stop Williams's heart, the Terrapins turned a 70-59 lead into a deficit with 2:45 to play — and then turned the deficit into victory in the final 90 seconds. They had to make free throws, which is always an adventure for this team. They had to play defense on a UTEP team that gave them fits the whole game, but came up with the stops that counted. The Terps did what they've started to do recently: win a big-stakes, big-pressure basketball game in March. They're the champs of March so far, 6-0 after beating UTEP, 86-83. It was nerve-racking theater for those who have Maryland advancing in their Phoenix bracket. It was up, then down, and always in doubt.
"That's us," Gary Williams said afterward. "That's who we are this year. . . . This is typical of the way we play. We have a chance to put teams away but we don't."
He was making an observation, not complaining. With no true standout player, one senior and no four-year seniors, Williams is happy to be still playing, even if next up is his close friend, Jim Boeheim, and defending champion Syracuse. These are Williams's Cardiac Kids, and he'll take them happily because all they've done in the most important month of the college basketball season is come through again and again and again.
It's not like they underestimated UTEP, and it's not like Maryland had nothing left in the tank after winning the ACC tournament. The Miners won 24 games this season with a smallish, quick team that moves beautifully and is hard to defend. They shot 52 percent, including 60 percent the first half. "I think in this case," Williams said, "you have to give UTEP credit. They did a great job of picking us apart."
The game was back and forth for the most part, until Maryland took that 70-59 lead on Nik Caner-Medley's drive to the hoop. Maryland was pounding UTEP on the boards, running its offense efficiently, yet. . . . We were reminded last weekend in Greensboro that the Terrapins play better from behind, when there's a more urgent tone to the game, when they feel they have to succeed or else. But once they have a lead, the Terps are so much more casual. "Playing with a lead," Williams said, "requires a lot of experience. I think that's true in any sport."
These Terrapins wonder whether to shoot in the natural flow of the game or slow it down, whether to keep pressing or pull back. Williams wonders, too, because he's still learning his team.
And there's another factor that enters the discussion. "We've come from behind in so many games," guard Chris McCray said, "it's become sort of a habit, playing close. It's great to be able to do it, but it's also our downfall. Up nine and 11 points today, we should have put them away at the eight-minute mark. But we get complacent with a lead. Maybe we start thinking about winning the game instead of doing what we did to build the lead."
Caner-Medley was a little more pointed.
"Anytime you do something so often, you get used to it," he said of Maryland playing from behind. "We'd better break that. This time of year, there's less room for error. We get up 10, and we feel like we're killing a team and we're not; it just feels that way from being in so many close games."
The good thing about this, besides winning the games, is the players have developed a calmness about them in the most tense stretches of the game. Today, the team's two worst free throw shooters (Jamar Smith, 49 percent and D.J. Strawberry, 52 percent) stepped to the line in the final minute and made 3 of 4 foul shots.
They're also learning what it's like to be the hunted. Maryland may have a young team now, but the UTEPs of this tournament don't care. They're playing the national champion once removed. They might as well be playing Juan Dixon, Steve Blake and Lonny Baxter.
"The last five games," Williams said, "we were coming after teams. Today, that's a team that's coming after us."
Syracuse faced some of the same issues in the second game here this afternoon.
"We both could have been out of here," Boeheim said of Maryland and Syracuse. "UTEP is good. If UTEP is a number 13 seed, holy cow! BYU is a 12 seed? They beat an Oklahoma State team that lost three games all year. I thought Wake Forest was going to the Final Four, and they only won by one point?"
The Orangemen got 20 points and 10 rebounds from Hakim Warrick, but more impressive was the way they fought off a BYU beast named Rafael Arajuo. No, you've never heard of the Brazilian center unless you're up with a satellite dish past midnight in the East. But you'll hear of him next year, when he's playing in the NBA. He's 7 feet, 300 pounds, and can shoot, rebound and move around as well as most 7-footers in the league who are 50 pounds lighter. He scored 24 points, grabbed 12 rebounds, and Syracuse was lucky that foul trouble limited him to 31 minutes.
Boeheim, as he left Pepsi Center, NBA home to his former pupil and last year's NCAA king, Carmelo Anthony, was trying to figure out what separates teams seeded in the top five of this tournament from teams seeded 11th and 12th. "A number one seed gets one game off," he said. "Other than that, coming in, you have to play. You have to be ready to go unless you're the top seed."
And by ready to go, Boeheim means ready to play well enough to leave with the narrowest of victories, no matter what conference you represent, no matter your national reputation, no matter how recently you cut down the nets.
