CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Of course, they blew it.
When time passes, the tears dry and we learn that no matter what your mom said, you could grimace all night and your face doesn't actually freeze that way, we'll look back at this year's Maryland men's basketball team and there will be just one certainty that makes any sense: Of course, the Terps blew it.
Last night, that wasn't just a single game. It's too simple to think we were only watching the opening round of the ACC tournament. The Terps managed to condense and encapsulate their entire season into two halves of basketball.
Play great early.
Blow it all in the end.
That was the game. And that was their season.
Long before Boston College pulled out an exciting 71-68 win last night, knocking the Terps out of the conference tournament after just one game (the second straight year they went home this early), Maryland was playing some of its best basketball of the year. The Terps had an early 13-0 run - made nine of 10 field goals at one point - and seemed like they had shaken loose the demons that bothered them the past month.
But the Terps can go from inspired to insipid without warning, and before you knew it, we were midway through the second half and Boston College's Biko Paris was driving through the lane.
His layup made it 40-39 - the Eagles' first lead since the game's opening minutes. They kept driving the paint, kept launching shots. Boston College barely looked back.
The Terps, on the other hand, are now forced to look back. A tough truth was confirmed by last night's loss. As Maryland plodded its way through its final games of the season, players were in the unfortunate position to make a big statement about their embattled program.
Win a few games, add some gloss to that postseason resume, and we're talking about a second straight trip to the NCAA tournament. All that talk about the program dipping, about its head coach slipping, about its fan base annually NIT-tripping - it would all disappear.
A string of losses, however - well, there's just no sugarcoating this, so let's not try: The Terps' late season swoon confirmed fans' worst fears about the state of Maryland basketball. Rather than winning down the stretch and proving that a couple of lost seasons were but a hiccup on the timeline, this year's Terps instead proved that last season - which will stand as their lone trip to the NCAA tournament in a four-year span - was the anomaly.
