Maryland Basketball: No Chance In Heel

#3/3 North Carolina Tar Heels (24-2, 10-2 ACC) vs.
Maryland Terrapins (16-9, 5-6 ACC)
Comcast Center – College Park, MD

Real short and real sweet. As embarrassing as the Duke loss was, I think the Clemson loss may have been worse. And it’s sad that this is what Maryland fans have been reduced to debating now. At least against Duke you could say that Maryland played the worst they possibly could and the Nerds played out of their minds. That’s the only way the score got so lopsided. The real depressing thing about the Clemson game is Maryland actually played fairly well, at least in the first half, and the Tigers really only had 10 minutes of great basketball and 30 minutes of so-so. And they still won by 29.

I’ve never seen one team get so many highlight reel dunks in one game. That was unreal. Every play Clemson ran appeared crisp, well-planned, and well-executed. They could do no wrong within 10 feet of the hoop. And when Maryland overcompensated during Clemson’s second half run, the Tigers went outside and hit 9 three pointers in the second half. Again, the scary thing is that Clemson really didn’t play all that well. You combine that performance with their performance against Duke a few weeks ago, and it’s hard to believe that this team has somehow lost four ACC games. That’s how strong the conference is this season. Forget about the Big East. This is still the best conference in the country. I don’t know many Big East teams that could blow out Duke the way Clemson did.

The Terps run into North Carolina for the second time this season. And yes, just to make sure you’ve been paying attention, Maryland is the only team in the country that has to play both UNC and Duke twice this season. Awesome job ACC schedule makers. Seems fair. Just in case you don’t know how this one is going to end up, consider this: that Clemson team I just praised for blowing out Maryland and Duke already lost by 24 to North Carolina. And they actually played well in that loss.

UNC still has Tyler Hansbrough, in his 7th year of eligibility. He’s been the best player in the conference the past two seasons and I’m not sure why he found it necessary to come back for his senior campaign. It can’t be much of a challenge. Ty Lawson is still there. So is Wayne Ellington. So is Danny Green. I’m not sure how Roy Williams has managed to convince all his players to stay, but they all still reside in Chapel Hill and are making life miserable for the rest of the conference. For the past couple of seasons, it’s been UNC and everyone else.

When March rolls around, this is still the team that I think will be standing at the end of the NCAA tournament (I guess that’s April, not March…my bad). The only thing they don’t do well is play defense. Or they don’t play solid defense unless they feel like it. With tall athletic bodies, the Tar Heels can play defense. They just choose not to in most games. And when you score 92 points a game, you don’t need to play much of it. In fact, in the first meeting between UNC and Maryland, the Heels defense was atrocious. They gave up 91 points to the Terps and it was the best Maryland’s offense has looked all season. However, they scored 108, so it didn’t really matter. I know that “defense wins championships”. But all Carolina has to do is hold teams to 80 points a game and they’ll be fine. They are too deep and loaded with too many scorers for any team in the country to stop. Even in their losses (a respectable 3-point loss at Wake and the still perplexing 7-point loss to BC at home), the Heels averaged 84 points.

So how do the Terps win this game? Uh, unless there is a way to stop UNC’s bus from arriving at the arena, they don’t.

North Carolina 94
Maryland 76

ACC PICKS:
Miami 75, Boston College 70
NC State 71, Virginia 61
Florida State 68, Virginia Tech 65
Clemson 86, Georgia Tech 69
Wake Forest 84, Duke 77