Duke Runs Maryland, Vasquez Right Out of Cameron

Maryland's Greivis Vasquez may have learned a valuable lesson: past performance is not necessarily indicative of future performance. Vasquez may have performed well at Cameron Indoor Arena last year. And yes, he's an emotional player. Still, declaring Cameron "my house" was predictably moronic. Especially when Vasquez and his teammates could not even come close to backing up that check. Duke destroyed Maryland Saturday afternoon, 85-44.

This one was over early. Duke had a 40-15 halftime lead, and was up by double digits barely 10 minutes into the game. Not even five minutes into the second half it ballooned to 60-20. After that, Duke just coasted to their largest win over Maryland in the history of the two teams.

Duke was having fun and emptied their bench in the second half. Meanwhile, Maryland's players had been completely broken. Maryland coach Gary Williams had used all but one of his second-half timeouts within the first five minutes, but to no avail. Maryland couldn't shoot, couldn't rebound and couldn't take care of the ball.

In the first half, the Terps shot 7-for-25, turned the ball over 12 times and were out rebounded 25-to-8. The situation did not improve in the second half.

The only reason to keep watching, beyond the pure trainwreck aspect of it, was to see if Vasquez would completely lose it at the Cameron Crazies. The chants of "Vas-quez! Vas-quez!" were quite frequent.

There's no shame in losing to Duke in Cameron. There's not a lot, even in most double-digit losses. This, however, was absurd. The whispers of Gary Williams starting to lose job security at Maryland only grow louder after games like this.

This kind of loss goes deeper than talent difference, home court advantage, being outcoached, outhustled and outplayed. It suggests the Terps are a team that does not care; and a coach that no longer can connect to his players. Whether that means those players have to go, or the coach, remains to be seen. Either way, it is on Gary Williams to figure it out, since he was the one who made the decision to recruit them, and still instructs them.