Maryland Basketball: Wake Up Call

Maryland Terrapins (17-11, 7-6) at
Wake Forest Demon Deacons (16-9, 6-6)
Lawrence Joel Memorial Coliseum - Winston-Salem, NC

I’m not even going to spend any time on the loss to Miami. It was a thorough beating, one of the more one-sided losses Maryland’s had all season. And that’s saying something.

We turn our attention to the much discussed bubble. The Terps find themselves squarely on it. Most projections will tell you that Maryland would still be in the tournament today. I have to agree, although I can’t imagine Maryland as anything other than one of the final two or three teams to get an at large bid.

Earlier this season, I talked about how Maryland, despite all their problems, had one thing going for them. The ACC was supposed to be weak this season, so even though Maryland may not be great, they could still manage to find a way to win 8-10 conference games. Turns out that Clemson, Wake Forest and Virginia Tech were all much better than expected. So the ACC might not be as weak as I, or anyone else, thought it was in the middle of January (although I did say that any “bracketologist” giving the ACC only three tournament bids was insane…and I was right on that one).

While the state of the ACC may be better than previously thought, the state of the national “bubble” is weaker than usual. Thus, Maryland has found themselves another potential backdoor. At 17-11 and 7-6 in the conference, with an RPI in the mid-60’s, Maryland would normally be staring at three must win games and then at least one must win game in the ACC tournament. However, that clearly isn’t the case this season. Maryland must beat Virginia on the road. That’s an absolute must. If the Terps can’t win that game they don’t deserve to go to any postseason tournament. But the next two games at Wake Forest and then home against Clemson just warrant a split. Two wins in the next two games would pretty much seal a bid and make the ACC tournament irrelevant. So Maryland is still in very good shape.

Why is this? Well, take a look at the national picture. The ACC has only three teams that are pretty much assured of going (I’m counting Clemson despite the Oliver Purnell factor). Two of Maryland, Miami and Wake will make it as well. Counting Miami, that’s four for the ACC. The Big East has seven schools that are firmly entrenched in the NCAA’s (some may argue about the WVU Mountain-queers, but their closing schedule is very soft). The Big Ten has a solid four. The SEC has five. The Big XII has six (again, for argument’s sake, I’m counting Baylor). The Pac-10 has six. That’s a total of 32 teams from the power conferences. Subtract the six conference winners that get automatic bids, that’s only 26 at large teams. Conference USA will probably get one at large to go with Memphis. The Atlantic-10 will get at least one, if not two at large bids. The Mountain West and WCC will probably get one at large bid a piece. That leaves about 30 teams that have clinched, or are very close to clinching, at large bids.

So there are probably four bids completely up for grabs. Here are some of the teams Maryland is competing with for those four spots: Wake Forest, Ohio State, Syracuse, Villanova, the Atlantic-10 mess (other than Xavier, a team that’s getting in one way or the other, the Terps have to worry about Dayton, UMass, Rhode Island and Saint Joseph’s), New Mexico and Alabama-Birmingham. Maybe Western Kentucky. Maybe the actual Kentucky. Looking at those teams, other than Ohio State (a team that may not win again with their extremely tough closing slate), which team is more deserving of a bid than Maryland right now? I can’t make a logical argument for any of the others except New Mexico. And the Lobos just lost at home to BYU. Plus, this is all assuming that teams like Miami, Baylor, Florida, Arkansas, Mississippi State, Arizona State and Houston all get bids. None of those teams are assured of anything yet. So there could be more than four spots available. The only thing that could sink Maryland, other than losing to Virginia, is if teams like Kent State and VCU lose their conference tournaments.

I could talk about the bubble all day, but I’m not going to. Maryland has a huge “bubble game” against Wake Forest to deal with first. The Demon Deacons have been playing much better basketball than anyone will give them credit for. And that was before they embarrassed the mighty Dookies. Playing for the memory of a dead man (see Redskins, 2007-08 season for precedent) has proven to be the spark that Wake needed after two years of scraping at the bottom of the conference. It’s hard to root against these guys just like it was hard to root against the Redskins in December.

For the last two seasons, we were all told that the late Skip Prosser was restocking the fridge at Wake, but the results weren’t showing that. What they did show was a team that had wasted the senior seasons of Justin Gray and Eric Williams and a team that was getting younger and younger each season. However, this year appears to be the turning point for the Deacs. Whether they make the tournament or not, this year has been a success in Winston-Salem. James Johnson has been a real find, contributing 15 points and 8 rebounds per. Jeff Teague, another one of the many freshmen, has also chipped in 13 points a game. L.D. Williams and Ishmael Smith have both improved. Chas McFarland is probably a year and 20 pounds away from being a dominant center in the ACC. He’s well on his way. Quick around the basket. He also looks comfortable around the basket for a big man. There’s a lot to like about this Wake team in the next couple of years.

The one major problem is experience. There are no seniors on this roster, which means no player on Wake Forest has ever played in the NCAA tournament. In fact, of the juniors, only Harvey Hale ever sees the court for substantial periods of time. So the Deacs are .500 in the ACC with freshmen and sophomores. How long can this team keep their heads about them? Especially with a rookie coach on the sideline.

After tonight’s game, Wake Forest has a relatively easy closing stretch. I hope that Wake wins three of their final four, grabs a game in the ACC tournament, and makes a shocking NCAA bid. It would be an incredible story. I just hope that they don’t get this one.

Maryland 77
Wake Forest 73