Acc Tournament

Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner John Swofford has been affiliated with the league since 1973, and he struggled this week to recall when there was as much balance in men's basketball as there was this season, lending to a truly wide-open ACC tournament. With the top five teams in the league separated by one game, and a shift in power from the state of North Carolina to Virginia, it seems as if anything can happen this week at the tournament, which begins tomorrow at the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa, Fla. Maryland vs. Miami ACC tournament first round, tomorrow, 2:30 p.m. (approximate)

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Maryland coach Gary Williams and freshman guard Greivis Vasquez - perhaps the two most parallel personalities within the program - handled the Terps' loss to Butler in the second round of the NCAA tournament in a similarly frustrated fashion. Neither will be able to let it go anytime soon. "It's something that I'm going to watch all year," Vasquez said. "I'm going to go farther next year. "I'm the type of guy, I want something better than this," he said. "People are going to say we had a great season, the freshmen did pretty good, put the team in the tournament.

TAMPA, Fla.-- --Finally, my first ACC men's basketball tournament. I'd heard the stories from coaches, players and fellow sportswriters for years and have looked forward to experiencing the event in person. The rich tradition. The frenzied excitement. The flip-flops and sunscreen. Yep, you read that right. Something funny happened when the tournament made the trek from Tobacco Road to the Cigar City. That little thing that made the event so special seems to have gotten lost, stranded at a Waffle House in Georgia probably.

CARY, N.C. -- Ben Nason had two goals and Patrick Nyarko had a goal and an assist as Virginia Tech defeated Maryland, 3-0, in the quarterfinals of the Atlantic Coast Conference men's soccer tournament. It was the Hokies' first-ever victory in the ACC tournament. Fourth seed Virginia Tech (11-2-5) will face No. 1 seed Boston College in the semifinals tomorrow. The Eagles defeated No. 8 seed Virginia, 1-0, yesterday. The Terps (10-5-4), who were seeded No. 5 in the tournament, now await their NCAA tournament fate.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- Chris Carrawell strutted off the court and stopped to absorb the sweetest noise a Duke player will ever hear at the Smith Center.Silence.Into the emptiness, Carrawell yelled, "Yeah!" For good measure, he yelled it one more time, and then satisfied, continued his walk to the Duke locker room, where the rest of the Blue Devils were celebrating the first perfect, 16-game season in ACC history.No. 1 Duke's 81-61 dismantling of No. 14 North Carolina last night, the Tar Heels' worst loss ever at the Smith Center, left the home crowd dumbstruck and the UNC coach grasping for ways to characterize one of the best teams in ACC history.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- North Carolina was terrific. Maryland's comeback was superb. And the Terrapins' loss to the Tar Heels in the ACC tournament semifinals yesterday won't matter when the NCAA tournament starts next week.But none of that absolves the Terps' abysmal performance in the first 28 minutes of a game in which they had much to gain.None of that absolves the troubling reality that the Terps basically failed to show on a day when they had a real chance to secure a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, bury North Carolina for one of the few times ever and advance to their first ACC tournament final in 15 years.

The Maryland Terrapins will spend this week playing two games they should win and could lose, in the process revealing much about the course of the rest of their season.Will the Terps sprint into March on a roll, carrying a winning streak, a fat record and the intimidating presence they exhibited earlier in the season? Or will the mild funk in which they have lost two of their past three games persist?Tonight's game against North Carolina State at Reynolds Coliseum will start the process of answering those questions; even though the Terps pounded the Wolfpack last month at Cole Field House, they're never a lock on the road in the Atlantic Coast Conference, as their loss at Wake Forest demonstrated.

COLLEGE PARK -- Maryland students gathered in all the normal places to watch their Terps open the ACC tournament against Florida State yesterday. Some huddled over burgers and beers at campus-area pubs. Some crowded around televisions in their dorm rooms.For the first time, Terps fans had another option -- the Internet. The ACC tournament, being held in Charlotte, N.C., is making its World Wide Web debut this year.The interactive site allows fans to listen to games live and to access up-to-the-minute statistics, discussion groups and video clips of postgame news conferences as they take place.

COLLEGE PARK -- Reeling from losses in its previous two games, the University of Maryland women's basketball team gave Kelley Gibson a nice Cole Field House send-off yesterday with a 92-79 Atlantic Coast Conference win over Georgia Tech.The senior from Easton picked up nine points and eight assists to close out her home-court career before a season-high crowd of 3,124, which ended with her witnessing a small step in the growth of her younger teammates."It seems like I've been here for years, but it's all gone so fast," Gibson said.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The hallowed halls of Atlantic Coast Conference basketball tradition are shaking today in the aftermath of a historic 19-0 single-season run by the Duke Blue Devils.No one had ever dominated this league like Duke has this season, and the Blue Devils touched off more talk of greatness yesterday with a 96-73 demolition of North Carolina in the ACC tournament championship game at Charlotte Coliseum."I've said many times Duke is a great team," said North Carolina coach Bill Guthridge.

World Series of Poker Oakland's Moon to face off against Cada for top prize A 21-year-old playing in his first World Series of Poker main event in Las Vegas is poised to become its youngest champion if he can beat an amateur logger who had never gambled for high stakes before entering the no-limit Texas Hold 'em tournament. Joe Cada, from Shelby Township, Mich., is 340 days younger than Denmark's Peter Eastgate, who last year broke the age record set by 11-time gold bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth two decades earlier.

Relief and disappointment for two area programs punctuated the release of the NCAA tournament brackets Sunday night. Despite four losses in its past seven contests, the No. 13 Maryland men's lacrosse team earned one of nine at-large bids and will travel to Indiana to face seventh seed Notre Dame (15-0) at noon Sunday. The Terps (9-6) had stumbled in recent weeks, losing a seven-overtime thriller to then-No. 1 Virginia, dropping back-to-back games to in-state rivals Navy and Johns Hopkins, and getting ousted from the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament by a North Carolina team that had previously lost 12 straight in tournament action.

Kim Rodgers had plenty of chances to smile during the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament. But the Maryland redshirt freshman is notoriously stoic when she is on the basketball court, so she remained stone-faced after every timely three-pointer - and there were several - she hit during the three games in Greensboro, N.C. Her expression didn't change, even after she converted two pressure-packed free throws with 12.9 seconds left in overtime against Duke...

It's not surprising that Brendan Byrne's confidence is peaking as he prepares for his first appearance at the NCAA wrestling championships. Byrne captured an Atlantic Coast Conference title last week after previously finishing second and third, and he beat a ranked opponent for the first time in six tries this season when it mattered most. The redshirt junior said his 7-6 win over eighth-ranked Jarrod Garnett of Virginia Tech in the 125-pound final in Blacksburg was as much a relief as anything else.

ATLANTA -Entering the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament last night, the Maryland Terrapins were playing for time. They were like a pickup team needing a win to stay on the court for another game. The seventh-seeded Terrapins' 74-69 victory over North Carolina State not only secured their goal of hanging around Atlanta another day - they face second seed Wake Forest tonight - but it also allowed them to cling to their season-long hopes of advancing to the NCAA tournament. One more win might do it. "I'm really excited I get another chance to play tomorrow," said junior guard Greivis Vasquez, whose Terps had been eliminated in this tournament's first round the previous two seasons.

1 Plan it well: If you're going to call in sick to watch the ACC tournament (starting at noon on Ch. 54), figure out how you're going to stay home next week for the NCAAs. 2 Patriotic: Last resort of a scoundrel, but also last chance for Holy Cross or American to make the NCAAs - Patriot League final (4:45 p.m., ESPN2). 3 Sounds familiar: MLB Network (7 p.m.) is showing the Yankees and Red Sox! Can you believe it? We never get to see them. 4 Hoop-de-do: The Class 1A and 2A boys and girls play their basketball state semifinals at, respectively, University of Maryland and UMBC, starting at 3 p.m. 5 If you're bored: Post on a Steelers fans' message board that Pittsburgh's first few Super Bowls shouldn't count because the Steelers were steroid cheats.

MARYLAND (18-12, 7-9) VS. N.C. STATE (16-13, 6-10) What to watch for: Maryland has often played well under pressure and will need to again. The Terps have left themselves in a precarious position after dropping their regular-season finale to Virginia and missing a chance to end the regular season with a .500 league mark. Now the Terps, who beat North Carolina State on March 1, need at least two ACC tournament wins to get an at-large berth in the NCAA tournament. This is Maryland's first appearance at the Georgia Dome since winning the 2002 national championship.

GREENSBORO, N.C. - Lynetta Kizer had already seen Duke hit one buzzer-beating, game-tying shot off an offensive rebound in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament final yesterday afternoon. So when she saw sharpshooter Abby Waner launch a three-pointer in the waning seconds of overtime, all the Maryland center thought about was boxing out, grabbing a rebound and making sure the Terrapins held on to their three-point edge. Waner's shot glanced off the rim and right into Kizer's hands, which turned out to be, Kizer said later, "the easiest rebound of the night."

Tyler Hansbrough walked off the court after his final home game at North Carolina celebrating another Atlantic Coast Conference championship and another win over the Tar Heels' fiercest rival. And once again, Ty Lawson had a lot to do with that. Hansbrough scored 17 points and Lawson nearly had a triple double to help the No. 2 Tar Heels beat No. 7 Duke, 79-71, yesterday, winning the league's regular-season title and the top seed in this week's ACC tournament. Lawson finished with 13 points, eight rebounds, nine assists and several key late plays for the Tar Heels (27-3, 13-3)

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -It's hard to imagine how badly Gary Williams must have wanted this win. The Maryland coach was so close to making the NCAA tournament with an undersized team in a trying season. Williams' Terrapins missed a chance to make a much-needed statement to the NCAA tournament selection committee when their late comeback fell short and they lost, 68-63, yesterday to a Virginia team that had dropped four games in a row. "It hurts," said Williams, who wore the distant look afterward of a man stuck in a moment gone by. Maryland players said they could still make the NCAAs with a deep run in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament beginning in Atlanta on Thursday.