It took 107 days, but the Terrapin men’s basketball team finally has a win it can affix to its NCAA Tournament resumé.
Sure, Florida State was without the ACC’s reigning Defensive Player of the Year, forward Chris Singelton, who broke his foot nearly two weeks ago against Virginia. But the Seminoles are No. 48 in the RPI and boast the league’s third-best conference record at 9-4. They’ve pretty much punched their ticket to the Big Dance.
With their 78-62 breakthrough last night, the Terps at last have a signature win worth boasting about, something they had been lacking all season.
And while their performance certainly doesn’t guarantee the Terps a berth in the NCAA Tournament, it was a small step forward in remaking their still-weak case to the tournament’s selection committee.
In all likelihood, the Terps will need to beat No. 19 North Carolina on Sunday and then win at least one — some might even say two — games in the ACC Tournament to ensure an invitation to the field of 68. Despite those small odds, last night’s victory showed that you can’t count this Terp team 100 percent out just yet.
“We don’t want to go to the NIT, so we’ve got to win,” guard Adrian Bowie said. “We started with NC State, and now we got a big win against Florida State. We’ve just got to continue to win … by all means necessary.”
This year’s team, like a few others who have called Comcast Center home in recent years, is living life on the bubble precariously. With a strong finish this season, the Terps may still prove their many critics — including myself — wrong.
“The reason they say those things is because they read The Diamondback,” coach Gary Williams said. “That’s why they doubt us.”
It was just a week ago in this space where I wrote that the Terps, after being swept by Boston College and Virginia Tech, would not make the NCAA Tournament. But that seems to be just the way Williams likes it. He thrives under pressure and loves to prove his doubters wrong. It’s a quality he’s passed down to his players.
“We resemble Coach Williams,” Bowie said. “He never gives up. He never quits. He never thinks he’s out of anything, and it means a lot to us to know that our coach always believes in us.”
Williams has pulled off comebacks before. Perhaps the best and freshest evidence of his Terps succeeding under scrutiny came only two years ago. That season, Williams one-upped his skeptics — and there were plenty — by making the NCAA Tournament after the Terps finished league play with a 7-9 conference record.
As that team headed into the ACC Tournament, fans and the media used words ranging from “impossible” to “absurd” to describe the Terps’ postseason chances. That was far from the worst the Terps had heard, though. Earlier that season, The Washington Post ran a three-part series chronicling Williams’ recruiting failures, which led to talk of the longtime coach possibly being fired.
How did he and the Terps respond?
In the ACC Tournament, the Terps rattled off two wins — including one over then-No. 8 Wake Forest — and advanced to the semifinals. When Selection Sunday arrived the same weekend, the Terps were safely in as a No. 10 seed.
A similar finish to this year is not out of the question. With each up and down the Terps endure, this season’s path creeps closer and closer to that one.
“That team had a lot of heart, and this team has that same kind of heart — that never-say-never attitude,” forward Dino Gregory said. “A lot of guys have stepped up lately, and that’s what you need.”
Last night, they got something equally necessary: a good win. And while the team’s postseason chances remain slim, Williams’ 2009 team proved it doesn’t necessarily matter however faint hope may be for a team to succeed. It just needs to exist.
jengelke@umdbk.com
