Junior guard D.J. Strawberry said he can’t wait to play the Tar Heels because it’s a chance for the Terps to bolster their weak resume with a quality win.

Addressing his team in the locker room after Wednesday’s loss at Florida State, Terrapin coach Gary Williams’ message was short and simple.

“Coach just said it’s up to us,” junior guard Parrish Brown said. “He said we know what we’ve got to do, so we’ve got to get ready for practice on Friday.”

At this point there’s little room for error in terms of the Terps achieving their season-long goal of earning an NCAA tournament at-large bid. One more loss will make the Terps (16-10, 6-7 ACC) incapable of finishing with a winning conference record and make it almost impossible for them to earn an at-large bid without a strong showing in the ACC tournament.

So with a game against No. 21-ranked North Carolina (18-6, 9-4) in Chapel Hill on Sunday, Williams said he believes today’s practice will be telling in whether the Terps have what it takes to finish the season strong.

“We find out what we’re made of,” Williams said. “If you’re a team, I don’t care what the situation, you have to believe you can win the last three.”

In the locker room, several Terps echoed a confidence that they can beat North Carolina, Miami and Virginia over the next week and a half.

“Our backs are against the wall,” junior guard D.J. Strawberry said. “I can’t wait to play on Sunday against Carolina. We have to win.”

The Terps have lost five of the past six games in the series, and the Tar Heels have won four straight overall, including a 24-point drubbing of No. 14 N.C. State Wednesday in Raleigh.

North Carolina also showed signs of dominance when they visited College Park this season. In the Feb. 2 meeting at Comcast Center, the Tar Heels surrendered just 22 second-half points, while holding the Terps to 26.5 percent shooting from the field in that stanza. The 77-62 win even came on a night freshman sensation Tyler Hansbrough had trouble getting into rhythm.

Perhaps most ominous is how the Terps were beaten on the boards and ultimately squashed by timely 3-pointers in their game against Carolina – problems that mirrored Wednesday’s painful loss – and they have lost six of seven on the road this year.

But there is some silver lining. The match-up against a top-25 team will provide the Terps with the type of challenging opponent they need to get a big win for momentum and resume purposes.

NCAA Selection Committee Chairman Craig Littlepage said unbalanced conference schedules will cause the committee to further look into which opponents teams beat more so than the team’s conference record. That means regardless of their final record, a win against a team of North Carolina’s caliber may be necessary for the Terps at this point.

The only relevant question now is whether they can do it.

“Until it’s Selections Sunday, we’re really not out,” Strawberry said. “We haven’t had success lately, but we’re going there thinking we can win this game.”

Contact reporter David Selig at dseligdbk@gmail.com.