Miami

Freshman center Shaquille Cleare will get his second career start when the Terps take on Miami on Sunday night in Coral Gables, Fla. Maryland will employ Cleare in a big lineup with 7-footer Alex Len, coach Mark Turgeon said today. Len will play power forward with Cleare at center. "That's a big '4,' " Cleare said of Len. "It's going to be kind of scary. I think it's going to be a great lineup. " Regular starters Nick Faust and Dez Wells are also likely to open the game, and Turgeon said he's still deciding on his point guard.

So much had happened in the second half at Sun Life Stadium. Maryland was winning, then losing, then winning, then losing. But when coach Ralph Friedgen and his Terps awoke Sunday morning, the bottom line was that although they had lost, 26-20, to Miami, their position in their Atlantic Coast Conference division was remarkably unchanged. "We're kind of right back where we started," Friedgen said Sunday in his media conference call. Maryland (6-3, 3-2 ACC) entered Saturday's matchup with the Hurricanes one-half game behind Florida State in the Atlantic Division, and tied with North Carolina State for second place.

The eighth-ranked Maryland women's basketball team has had an excruciating tendency for missing layups this season, and on Sunday afternoon, that failing along with careless ball security and inefficiency from the free throw line contributed to a 76-74 loss to No. 6 Miami before 11,008 at Comcast Center. The Hurricanes went ahead for good, 73-72, with 39 seconds to play on senior forward Sylvia Bullock's jumper from the left side. Maryland had a chance to regain the lead, which it had held from midway through the first half until two minutes remained in the game, but senior guard Anjale Barrett missed a short jumper.

MIAMI -- Nebraska is their opponent, but the Miami Hurricanes will be playing more than one game tomorrow night. They will be playing poll politics, the numbers game and the Washington Huskies.When the No. 1 Hurricanes (11-0) meet 11th-ranked Nebraska (9-1-1) in the Orange Bowl, they will know that a win may not be enough. If second-ranked Washington overcomes No. 4 Michigan in the Rose Bowl, Miami may have to pour it on the Huskers to ensure at least a share of their fourth national championship in nine years.

MIAMI -- The Big East Conference is essentially three votes away from expanding, and commissioner Mike Tranghese said the University of Miami is the "focal point" of most expansion discussions.The three major football schools in the nine-team conference -- Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Boston College -- already have endorsed expansion. The approval of only three other schools is needed to expand, and the conference could get those votes as soon as next week."I would say the status quo is unacceptable," Villanova athletic director Ted Aceto said yesterday.

MIAMI -- The tension was evident as the Miami Hurricanes gathered outside the Orange Bowl yesterday for their team photo."Ice cream!" the 'Canes shouted. "Ice cream man!"The ice-cream truck stopped on NW 16th Avenue, but much to the players' dismay, they couldn't descend from the makeshift bleachers for a mid-day snack.Better they should stay hungry, and devour both of Nebraska's quarterbacks instead.The 'Canes plan on it.Indeed, they reacted to the news that Nebraska will start Tommie Frazier with their usual style and grace.

Loyalty, an admirable quality once revered by individuals and organizations, must be stricken from the language of sports. It's obsolete. Passe. Delete it from the dictionary. Don't mention it, .. not even casually, because no longer is there appropriate use for such reference in the area of what used to be fun and games.As the latest examples of blatant disregard for long and valuable contributions by two major communities, examine what transpired during the same week in two cities as diverse, geographically and culturally, as Miami and Milwaukee.

When you make your living writing about the facts, just the facts, ma'am, rearranging reality can be tempting. It'd be nice to clean up the mess of reality every once in a while -- solve all the unsolved cases, make every chase end in an arrest, correct all the injustices of the justice system.With this, her second novel, Edna Buchanan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning police reporter for the Miami Herald, ties up all those loose ends that can make reality so unsatisfying. "Miami, It's Murder" is indeed satisfying in the same way that Charles Bronson movies are: The bad guys eventually get theirs, but good.

MIAMI -- And then there were none.The last of the NFL's unbeaten teams saw its quest for perfection collapse at the hands of a quarterback and feet of a kicker no one else wanted when the Indianapolis Colts upset the Miami Dolphins, 27-24, in overtime yesterday.Cary Blanchard kicked the game-winning, 27-yard field goal, as the Colts (3-2) knocked off a 4-0 team for the second consecutive week. Indianapolis also defeated the St. Louis Rams, 21-18, on Oct. 1.This time, quarterback Jim Harbaugh rallied the Colts from a 21-point halftime deficit to steal the spotlight from Dan Marino, who set the NFL's all-time completion record early in the game.

A DAY FOR rumbling and rambling: If the University of Miami played Ohio State 10 times for the college football national championship, the Hurricanes would win nine. But what would make the game interesting is the contrast in styles. First of all, Miami is the most talented team in the country. The Hurricanes could have five players selected in the first round of the NFL draft in April in running back Willis McGahee, receiver Andre Johnson and defensive linemen William Joseph, Jerome McDougle and Vince Wilfork.