It won't be easy, but Maryland fans should be consoled by the fact that in the debacle at Cameron Indoor Stadium on Saturday, they got caught up in a long-awaited, much-needed renaissance.
Atlantic Coast Conference basketball has returned to its former glory.
Duke is part of it, having looked like the best team in the country in the 85-44 throttling and likely being rewarded for it with the top spot in the polls today. North Carolina and Wake Forest are part of it, too, having been ranked No. 1 for a combined eight of the 10 previous weeks. In agreeing Saturday that those three make a case to be the best three playing right now, Gary Williams and Mike Krzyzewski were not just exhibiting typical conference boosterism.
What seals the deal is that the harshest tests two of those teams have faced have come from within the ACC. Of the three, only Duke has lost outside the conference (at Michigan, a loss the Blue Devils have more than made up for since). Now, they get Wake in Winston-Salem on Wednesday, and North Carolina visits Cameron on Feb. 11.
After defending its preseason No. 1 ranking in dominant fashion, North Carolina fell to Boston College and Wake. And Wake, after handing Carolina that eye-opening defeat at home two weeks ago, was caught by Virginia Tech last week.
All of which means that the ACC's depth, its Achilles' heel in recent years, is improving. Last season, it was top-heavy with North Carolina and Duke, and weighed down not only by longtime members hitting bad stretches but also by recent additions from the 2004 football expansion not holding up their ends of the bargain. Of course, that's exactly what Williams and Krzyzewski warned against in the beginning, then had to look on in horror as they were proven right.
As a result, last season the league's reputation far exceeded its actual performance. Just four teams were invited to the NCAA tournament, and only North Carolina got past the first weekend.
The ACC had that overrated stench around it, and nowhere did it smell worse than around Duke, which barely avoided a second straight first-round loss and then went down in the second round. This year, the Blue Devils are better, deeper, tougher and no longer living off their past.
Check the results, Williams said: "We played Georgetown, and they were good. I know Duke took care of them here." The same Hoyas team handled Maryland easily in Orlando, Fla., during Thanksgiving weekend, then was in turn handled by Duke at Cameron two Saturdays ago.
