Heading into Wednesday night's Duke-Maryland tilt, the big story was about a resurgent Terps team, fresh off an overtime win over the second-ranked Tar Heels, and its sudden NCAA tournament prospects. Despite an inconsistent start to the season -- which included a home loss to Morgan St. and a 85-44 thrashing against the Blue Devils in Durham -- an emotional home-court victory over the ACC's best squad suddenly gave an aimless season direction. If Maryland could manage to upset seventh-ranked Duke, its tournament ticket would be punched.
It didn't happen. Perhaps the Terps were mentally spent after their dramatic win over the Heels. More likely: Duke, on most nights, is the better team. Maryland played inspired for stretches, but late-game foul trouble would be their eventual undoing.
Lost amid all the pre-game hype was the fact that Duke, too, has struggled with inconsistency this season. The low point, it could be argued, came two weeks ago when Coach Mike Krzyzewski admitted, unprovoked, that "We're not as good as they are right now," in the minutes after UNC beat Duke 101 87 in Cameron Indoor Stadium. But the things that don't kill you, as they saying goes.
Which helps explain last Sunday's 101-91 victory over eighth-ranked Wake Forest.
"Tonight was a huge game for us," Krzyzewski said after Sunday's win. "It was as big a game as we've had in three years. ... So whatever you can do ethically, legally and physically, you got to try to do."
There's still much to be decided -- including an end-of-season rematch against the Tar Heels -- but Coach K has to be pleased with how his team has responded after a 2-3 stretch to start the month.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-26-2009 @ 8:45AM
heford said...
How do you have a 2-6 stretch if your record is 23-5?
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2-26-2009 @ 8:46AM
James said...
OK, This is complete bullshit. #7 Duke, beating unranked Maryland is the top ranked story in college hoops from last night? We have to scoll much further down the page to read the story about Calhouns 800th win and how #2 UCONN beat #10 Marquette. The ress is so biased whenit comes to Duke. The only thing to trump Dukes story was Tigers comeback, which is one of the biggest stories in sports over the last few months...Duke is so over rated and it is annoying to see how much the press sucks up to them
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2-26-2009 @ 3:02PM
sergeantruss said...
If you would actually know how AOL does the articles, you wouldn't get your panties in such a twist. An article is written and it is the first one you read. As a new article is written the first one goes to the 2 position and the new article in the first to read, and so on. You Duke haters are so amazing. You get your little feelings hurt if anybody says anything good about Duke. If you had any smarts, you would know that every team is over rated. That is why the rankings change almost every week. A team is ranked number one, then they lose. They were obviously over rated or they wouldn't have lost the number 1 ranking. So, get over the jealously about Duke being a number one basketball program and just keep watching your loser team.
2-26-2009 @ 8:59AM
Randall Kim said...
It's been corrected, heford. Thx.
Reply
2-26-2009 @ 12:04PM
clemensused said...
The college game has passed Coach Krazooski. Talk about living off your 90s resume.
They'll get a top 4 seed, and won't make the 2nd weekend.
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2-26-2009 @ 3:06PM
sergeantruss said...
Again, another person who is jealous of Duke. What do you mean 90's resume. The Duke program has more records to their name under Coach K than almost every other basketball program. Twenty plus wins every year, 3 National titles, in the NCAA every year, scores of tourney wins. You Duke haters show your jeolousies far to often. You are so transparent.
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2-26-2009 @ 4:41PM
t2ws said...
I agree with Serg. on the Duke issue. Duke has been maligned for years by those who hate them. Their resume is impressive, so that is the important thing.
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2-26-2009 @ 5:54PM
vbjose said...
Well I would hope Maryland would play better than they did against Duke at Cameron. Because the first game was pathetic for Maryland. What was more pathetic is the way the Maryland fans act. I couldn't believe it when Nolen Smith got decked by the screen and went down that all the fans started cheering and were actually happy that happened. I just don't get it, wow, that is so sad. Some of things Maryland fans do is just down right nasty but that took the cake. I am not a Duke or ACC fan, but I do enjoy good basketball and sportsmanship and I just couldn't believe how the fans acted. You need to grow up in Maryland.
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