Fear The Turtle: Maryland Basketball Rolling into the Tournament

With 15:03 left in the game, Maryland trailed reigning ACC Champion North Carolina Tar Heels by 16 points, 50-34.

It was all but over.

Brent Musberger was already beginning to talk about UNC's remaining schedule and their chances of an ACC and, possibly, NCAA championship.

For the remainder of the game, though, something surged through this Maryland Terrapins team. Every shot attempt began to fall. Freshman guard Cliff Tucker provided a major spark off the bench, hitting five of his six three-point shots from the field.

With 1:33 left in the game, Maryland guard Eric Hayes stole the ball from Tar Heels point guard Ty Lawson. This eventually led to a Greivis Vasquez lay-in. On the next Maryland possession, Eric Hayes drove through the lane and made a lay-up.

The Terps were down just two. With nine seconds left in regulation, Vasquez drove to the right and hit a clutch lay-up to tie the game up at 76. The game was headed to overtime. Every Maryland fan knew that if the game went into O.T., there was just no chance in hell that UNC would escape the rowdy and electrified Comcast Center with a win.

Maryland ended up holding on to win the game 88-85, shocking UNC coach Roy Williams and the Tar Heels. The MVP of the game was, without question, Maryland guard Greivis Vasquez. He finished the game with 35 points, 11 rebounds, and 10 assists, which happened to be Maryland's first triple double in 22 years. 

Vasquez's performance was definitely one of the greatest individual performances I have ever seen in my time of watching college basketball. The win improved Maryland to 17-9 overall and 6-6 in the ACC, suddenly making them a hot prospect for the NCAA tournament.

March Madness

The win over then-No. 3 North Carolina definitely improved Maryland's chances of obtaining an NCAA Tournament spot. With March Madness approaching, Maryland still has four key games remaining on their schedule.

They are all ACC opponents and, if the Terrapins win two of the four, they should have no problem getting recognition on Selection Sunday in the coming weeks. If they beat Duke tonight on ESPN, it will most likely guarantee them a spot in the Big Dance.

They could also win the ACC tournament, which would automatically give them an NCAA tournament spot. I would bet money that Maryland will be dancing come March.

Strengths

Maryland has three main strengths come tournament time:

—The leadership of Head Coach Gary Williams is priceless. This man has proved time and again that he is able to win the big game. His experience and knowledge is great to have on the bench, especially when coaching one of the youngest and most inexperienced teams in the ACC. I think anyone would be confident with Coach Gary Williams leading their team come tourney time.

—Every good team usually has that one guy you can call the game changer. Maryland's game changer is Greivis Vasquez. He has great on-court leadership as the point guard of this team and he never gets nervous or chokes under pressure. Expect the ball to be in his hands when the game gets down to crunch time.

—Maryland has something that not too many teams have in college basketball: Valuable assets coming off the bench. There is always someone like P.J. Tucker that can nail a big three or hit a much-needed shot under pressure. The team also gets some rebounding production off the bench from Dave Neal when the starters have rebounding problems, which unfortunately does occur.

Weaknesses

An obvious weakness Maryland has is inexperience. Before the season began, the Terps were projected to finish last in the ACC, which is obviously not going to happen now. The main reason many experts predicted this was because of that inexperience.

The Terrapin roster is loaded with underclassmen, mostly freshman and sophomores. They only have a few upperclassmen on their roster and those guys need to step up and lead this team.

The second main weakness is size. The Terps are one of the smallest teams in the ACC and in the country. This will obviously cause problems with rebounding. It is unlikely that Maryland will get many second shot opportunities.

Prediction

The Maryland Terrapins will beat Duke tonight in College Park and go on to win two of their last three regular season games, which would put them at 20-10, 9-7 ACC. 20 wins overall and nine ACC wins is good enough for them to earn a spot in the tournament. The Terps will then go on to win two ACC tournament games before losing in the third round.

Hopefully this team will go far in the NCAA Tournament, but I don't see them getting anywhere past the Sweet 16 unless they have luck on their side. The Sweet 16 would be a great accomplishment for this team and would cap off an unexpected and very successful season.

Any Maryland fan could not ask for much more.