Maryland Peaking at the Right Time After Defeat of Georgia Tech

If the selection committee wanted a signature win from Maryland, they got it.

People (including me) wanted to see the Terps stand up to a top-50 RPI team. Boom.

Want a buzzer beater? Here you go. Oh, were you up getting another refreshment out of the fridge? Sorry about that. Here, let's do it again for you.  Did you want a Valium with that?  Or perhaps a nice aromatheraphy pillow?  Perhaps a defibrillator.

It's rare that any sporting event, much less a regular-season college basketball game, receives the first AND second spots on SportsCenter's "Top Plays," as this one did. That doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things (although recruits might disagree), but it speaks to the super-saturation of benevolence spilling forth from Maryland's epic buzzer-beater win over Georgia Tech last Saturday. 

I'm not going to comb back through the game. You saw it. And saw it. And saw it again. In fact, you might be watching the YouTube replay right now.

It's the kind of late-season win that gets a team positively hurtling toward the tournament. After beating Virginia, N.C. State, and Georgia Tech in five days, the phrase "peaking at the right time" comes to mind. When was the last time you could even consider beginning to think about possibly describing a Maryland team with that phrase?

Even though the adrenaline has worn off, there's still plenty for Terps fans to cheer about. Several of Maryland's slumping players finally got untracked, particularly Eric Hayes, who notched 15 points and five assists. Jordan Williams held his own on both ends against the monstrously gifted Derrick Favors, who might have outplayed Dwight Howard had he landed in the Comcast Center.

Behind it all, there is "General" Greivis Vasquez, who tallied 74 points, 19 assists, and 17 rebounds in their three wins last week en route to earning national and ACC player of the week honors.

But the Terps' current MVP doesn't even see the court. That's head coach Gary Williams. (Yeah, I know he's not actually a player...just humor me.) After willing a team playing its third game in five days to a come-from-behind road win at N.C. State, Coach Williams did it again versus the Yellow Jackets. 

The highlight came after Keith Booth called timeout (rightly, I believe) just before Buzzer Beater No. 1. Williams kept his head—and the heads of his players—and drew up a terrific inbounds play.

Vasquez broke toward the Georgia Tech basket, drawing multiple defenders and allowing Hayes to thread the pass to Cliff Tucker, who got the shot off with only one set of hands in his face. You know the result. 

(Interesting, I might add, that Gary called this play specifically for Tucker. Ah, but I ramble on.)

Speaking of Tucker, this could provide the lift he needs to be a bigger cog for this team. He has famously (well, in an among-Maryland-fans-who-read-the-Internet-every-day sort of way) complained about playing time and been caught laughing on the sidelines in the closing moments of a loss.

Tucker will only become more important down the stretch of this season and into next, when he will be a senior starter for the Terps.

This win also meant a ton from a purely nuts-and-bolts standpoint. The Terps are now solidly in second place in the ACC at 19-7 overall and 9-3 in the conference and are somewhat less abysmal against top opponents (Ga. Tech has been struggling, but they're still top-35 RPI and have been ranked at various times). If they have a .250 win percentage for the rest of the regular season, they are in like Flynn.

ESPN today upgraded Maryland to "Should Be In" for the tournament over the "Work Left To Do" status they had last week. The great Joe Lunardi has Maryland at the seventh seed if the tournament started today (interestingly, he has the Terps facing Cal in a 2009 first-round rematch, only with the seven and 10 seeds reversed).

The Terps aren't quite playing with house money yet, but after their biggest win of the year, they are darn close. Anything can happen, but the team has more momentum now than they have had at this particular stage of any season in recent memory.

(Photo credit: Yuchen Nie/DC Sports Box )