ATLANTA'They now seem beyond any foul trouble for senior forward Lonny Baxter or the rare off-night for junior guard Steve Blake. They seem impervious to the prodigious talent of the likes of Connecticut sophomore forward Caron Butler or even all-American junior forward Drew Gooden.
They can slow-dance with Wisconsin or play speed racer with Kansas. The Maryland basketball team is just plain good, one Monday night victory from eternal greatness. And as long as senior guard Juan Dixon is on the floor with four helpers, it's crazy to bet against Maryland.
The Terrapins exploded on Kansas the way teams just do not often explode on Kansas. The Jayhawks looked like every other Clemson and Florida State for 35 minutes on Super Saturday. Other than a four-minute stretch when the presumption of victory nearly caught them from behind, Maryland had answers for everything and came up with questions Kansas couldn't begin to address.
Before the game, the idea of Maryland being up five in the final few minutes would have been heavenly for Terp nation, for a university community starving for its basketball obsession to be certified. But after going ahead by 20, that five-point lead seemed so skinny. And it took a traveling violation by Kansas on freshman guard Aaron Miles with 1:42 left and free throw shooting by Dixon'always Dixon'to put it away.
Nevertheless, if this isn't the most talented basketball team in Maryland's history, it officially is now the most accomplished. Never in the school's history has this team played for a national championship. And, after such a long wait, it is going in well-fortified. It enters the national championship against Indiana with the best player in the tournament, Dixon, and with a cast so talented and deep it will now be a surprise if they lost.
From sophomore forward Chris Wilcox to a deep but talented bench, Maryland laid waste to Kansas for all but those five minutes. It did not matter that Baxter played only three minutes in the first half because of foul trouble, or that Blake scored only two free throws the first half and had yet another off-form performance. The Terps were so superior for the middle 30 minutes of the game it was scary.
In a coach's perfect world, a team comes back not with a torrent of three-pointers but with in-the-trenches defense. And that's how Maryland did it, with Wilcox slamming shots back into Jayhawk faces and with Dixon getting a steal and layup. Wilcox was like a force of nature, dominating Gooden head-to-head in a way we've not seen before. Fairly quickly, Maryland had gotten within 17-10, then 20-17, then 25-23. And then it was Dixon's time, which continued throughout the rest of the first half was actually, as Dixon hit four of seven three-pointers and scored 19 of his 33 points.
Twice in this tournament Dixon has scored 29 points, and had 27 in the regional final victory over Connecticut. He is Maryland's MVP in the tournament, Maryland's MVP all season and a worthy candidate for player-of-the year nationally, every inch as important to his team as Jason Williams is to Duke, or Gooden is to Kansas.
And the difference between great and good is wide enough to fill a dome. Greatness comes in the regional finals, on the final Saturday night of the season and on the final Monday for the really special ones.
That Maryland will meet Indiana comes as a surprise but shouldn't be a shocker. Anybody who figured Oklahoma would blow out Indiana clearly isn't paying close attention. Yes, the Sooners had beaten Maryland by 16 earlier in the year and Kansas three weeks ago on a neutral court in the Big 12 Tournament final.
But the reasoning that Oklahoma was somehow too tough, had too smothering a defense for Indiana to counter was seriously flawed. Big Ten teams like Indiana lean on each other, bang each other, defend the daylights out of each other every night for six weeks. So it made all the sense in the world that Indiana would feel right at home in such a game, playing half-court basketball. Didn't Indiana invent half-court, pass-and-cut, garage-door shooting basketball?
And then there was Indiana's size. Oklahoma couldn't match it'not many teams can. IU was able to survive 6'10\ sophomore forward Jared Jeffries' early foul trouble because Head Coach Mike Davis can look down his bench and send in 6'9"" junior forward Jeff Newton and 6'11"" sophomore center George Leach.
So with chief playmaker Tom Coverdale running around on a severely sprained ankle and Jeffries on the bench, Davis worked his lineup and squeezed enough out of his team to hang around until the Hoosiers could solve Oklahoma's smothering defense.
Former IU Head Coach Bob Knight was in Atlanta hyping his book, explaining why these Hoosiers were his and Davis had only been a traitor to coach them and remains just a caretaker. But Davis, once again, got everything out of his team that it had to offer. Knight has yet to call Davis, to congratulate the players he brags about recruiting.
Maybe the point to be made about Indiana's victory over Duke in the Sweet 16 isn't that the Blue Devils were so bad that night (because they weren't) but that Indiana has quite a team and quite a coach, maybe an extraordinary team and coach.
Now, it will try to extend its run with an extraordinary victory over Maryland. Davis and Indiana beat Duke, a No. 1 seed and beat Oklahoma, a No. 2 seed that had beaten two No. 1s. What's left now is not only the other No. 1 seed, but the best team in the tournament, a team that has never been called that this late in a season before.
