The Washington Times sports reporter Patrick Stevens covered the Terps men’s basketball team during its championship season in 2002.

Ten years ago this week, the Terrapins men’s basketball team won the program’s first and only national championship. The Washington Times sports reporter Patrick Stevens covered the Terps for The Diamondback during their title season, and he spoke with the paper about the impetus for the championship, the student-ticketing process of yore and the moment he knew what ultimately happened on April 1, 2002, was possible.

DBK: What was the feeling around the team heading into the season on the campus, especially with it coming off its first Final Four appearance the previous season?

PS: I would say there was definitely this sense of anticipation, given everyone who was coming back, given the fact that they had been to the Final Four the year before. I think that had left everybody, and certainly the students, thinking it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that that team could do something special like that again.

DBK: Were students still bitter regarding the Terps’ loss to Duke in the national semifinals the year before, or had that washed away?

PS: I think certainly in that era when the whole idea of running down to Route 1 after a Duke game was reasonably new – they had only done it three times at that time – that game was certainly raw. But you had all those guys back [guards Juan Dixon and Steve Blake and center Lonny Baxter] and you kind of figured, if things broke right, that they would be in that position again. It wasn’t like they had just lost the best player in school history and lost most of that roster.

DBK: What was coach Gary Williams like during that time and the championship run?

PS: Gary was Gary. The championship defined him and it should have. Most coaches don’t get to that level and Gary did. At that point, he was still chasing, still beating the “no one believes in us” drum, which I don’t think was entirely fair. You look back at both 2000 and 2001, both of those seasons Maryland started in the top 10. I think that there was a sense of nostalgia going into that year knowing that it would be the last year that Cole Field House would be open. So you had this group of players with Dixon and Baxter and, to a lesser extent, Blake that had been though it all once or twice. Then, of course, you have the arena closing. There was a real sense that this could be a particularly special year. I think Gary felt pretty good heading into that season with what he had on his plate at that stage. I don’t think there was any point in that year – you think about the losses; there was one in November, one in December, one in January and one in March – that there was ever a sense of constant adversity. This was a team that rolled along for basically the entire season.

DBK: What was the student-ticketing process like? Were there students who would camp out for games? How did it all work?

PS: The student-ticket process was still a campout. Typically, there was a day when the tickets were available, and people would start lining up for most games when the gate opened around 7 a.m. or whatever it may have been. It wasn’t obnoxious. There was a ticket booth in Cole Field House. For the Duke game and also Virginia, the last game at Cole, it was obviously different. But for the most part it was orderly, and obviously you didn’t have problems like scan and leave at that stage.

DBK: What was the excitement level entering the tournament and how did it look throughout the month of March?

PS: I would say that it was already pretty high. The place was packed throughout the season. You think about the location during the tournament. The opening weekend was in D.C., so there was certainly the ability for students to get down to the Verizon Center and catch some games if they could get some tickets. The regionals were up in Syracuse at the start of spring break, so I’m sure there were a handful of folks that made the trek up there. The Final Four [was] down in Atlanta, and I know of some that came down. I think that the fact that all the games were on the East Coast didn’t hurt interest at all. The actual week of the Final Four wasn’t crazy on campus simply because there wasn’t anyone around.

DBK: For you, who was the most interesting player on the team to talk to and why?

PS: Two of the guys that I thought that were thoughtful and not as beleaguered with interview requests as others on that team were Drew Nicholas and Tahj Holden. They were two really sharp guys that really had a good perspective on things. Drew probably had the quote of the entire tournament in the locker room after the title game where he basically said, “I don’t know if any of you guys have felt something like this in your lives, but I hope you do someday.” You probably couldn’t have summed it up much better. Then you think of a guy like Byron Mouton with his personality – it was never bad to hear what he had to say.

DBK: Is there a moment or a game that sticks out that people have forgotten about over the last 10 years that you still remember?

PS: A game I keep going back to, when I thought to myself, You know what, these guys really could win this thing – there were certainly a ton of moments. But the game I go back to is at the end of January, and they were down at Virginia. They were down about nine with about three-and-a-half minutes to play. At that point, Virginia is pretty good and I’m certain they’re ranked, maybe even in the top 10. It looked like the sort of game that most teams go ahead and lose at that stage. But Drew Nicholas hits two long-range 3-pointers and Maryland makes all but one or two free throws to rally and win. Most teams couldn’t have pulled that off, and Maryland did. That was a moment and a game that always stood out to me. It just showed that this wasn’t a team that was going to go down quietly in any circumstance. Obviously the Blake pick-pocketing of [Duke’s] Jason Williams at Cole, [and his] 3-pointer against UConn in the Elite Eight – there were certainly a lot of moments along the way.

ceckard@umdbk.com