Cliff Tucker

Gary Williams met the media at Comcast Center on Sunday wearing his usual expression, as if someone had just rear-ended his car. Moments earlier, his Maryland Terrapins had improved their record to 3-0 with an 89-59 pasting of Maine. Now Williams was being asked how good this Maryland team could be, and his answers invariably came down to this: Who knows? It's only November. "Nobody's where they want to be on Nov. 14," the Terps coach said. "You have to keep improving.

After Maryland's opening game, coach Gary Williams resisted lavishing too much attention on promising guard Pe'Shon Howard or Maryland's other first-year players. "This is one game," was the coach's mantra then. After the season's second game Wednesday night, it proved increasingly challenging for Williams not to single out Howard for praise. Capping a night in which he repeatedly made big plays, the confident freshman swished in a basket with three seconds left to lift Maryland to a 75-74 victory over College of Charleston.

Feeling the pressure of replacing three senior starters, most members of the Maryland men's basketball team remained close to campus over the summer. The players participated in pickup games with Maryland alumni such as Steve Blake, lifted weights and ate meals together. They couldn't have remained closer to Comcast Center if they had slept there. In fact, a small group did just that. "Actually, we lived in Comcast for a little while," said senior forward Dino Gregory.

Since 1990, No. 4 seeds are 64-17 in the first round of the NCAA tournament. But the fourth-seeded Maryland Terrapins know their opponent tonight possesses a skill that can be the great equalizer - the 3-point shot. Houston, the No. 13 seed, made more 3-pointers this season - an average of 8.3 per game - than in all but three years of its history. "We definitely focused on it knowing that Houston is all about run-and-gun - getting the ball up and getting a lot of 3s up," Maryland junior guard Adrian Bowie said before a shootaround Thursday night at Spokane Arena.

Maryland may look back one day and find that its 69-64 loss to Georgia Tech in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament didn't mean much in terms of the Terrapins' ultimate goal of making a deep run in the NCAA tournament. But the loss sure stung the Terps on Friday night. It was a trying defeat because of the success that No. 19 Maryland (23-8) had during the regular season, winning its last seven games and raising fans' expectations. It was made all the more dispiriting because the Terps -- using frenetic, full-court defense -- erased all but one basket of a 19-point deficit.

The Atlantic Coast Conference tournament has a familiar feel for the second-seeded Maryland Terrapins. After all, they have played each of the participants this season and could find themselves playing at least one team for a third time. At the same time, the tournament is very different -- the schedule is more compressed -- than the regular season. Preparing for it requires a new set of procedures. About the only thing like it for No. 19 Maryland this season was the Maui Invitational, in which the Terps played three games in three days in November, losing two. The team could have a similar schedule at Greensboro Coliseum if it wins Friday night and Saturday to advance to Sunday's final.

Gary Williams and Mike Krzyzewski weren't looking too far ahead after their teams played Wednesday night at Comcast Center, but Maryland's 79-72 victory over Duke could have some significant postseason ramifications for the No. 22 Terps. In the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament, where, barring either team losing Saturday or all the tiebreakers suddenly turning in Maryland's favor, Duke will enter as the No. 1 seed if the Terps and Blue Devils finish with identical 13-3 conference records.

- There are many ways to describe Maryland's 104-100 double-overtime win Saturday night here over Virginia Tech. Start with strange. Three hours before what was supposed to be a 4 p.m. tipoff, Gary Williams and his players got off the bus in front of Cassell Coliseum and noticed the sidewalk was flooded. It came from a water main that had been ruptured when a van carrying beer to a pre-game party in an adjacent building backed into a hydrant, knocking it over. "I knew something was up," the Maryland coach said more than six hours later.

Spring training is in full swing, so we finally have something to discuss besides the Terps, Ravens and Caps. Sure, we'll still talk about them, too, but it's nice to have another option. [1] The gang's all there in Sarasota, Fla., after the Orioles position players reported to spring training Tuesday morning. Miggy Tejada rolled in at the last minute, of course, but hey, at least he made it. Making the switch from shortstop to third base, Tejada says he feels "like a little kid with a new toy."