Obinna Ekezie

Moves Baseball BLUE JAYS: Signed former Orioles C Greg Myers to one-year, $900,000 contract. Released P Doug Creek. Sent P Tanyon Sturtze, P Corey Thurman, P Brian Bowles, P Dan Reichert, P Mike Smith, P Diegomar Markwell, IF Dominic Rich outright to Triple-A Syracuse. Announced Thurman, Sturtze, Bowles, Reichert and Markwell have declined their assignments, making them free agents. Added IF Simon Pond to 40-man roster. BREWERS: Signed P Travis Phelps. CARDINALS: Purchased P Chris Narveson from Double-A Tennessee P Rhett Parrott and 1B John Gall from Triple-A Memphis.

WASHINGTON - Obinna Ekezie and Cherokee Parks were excused from last night's Washington Wizards game with the Atlanta Hawks at the MCI Center. They were the lucky ones. In an utterly desultory performance, the Wizards sleepwalked their way to a 102-75 loss to the Hawks, one of the candidates for mantle of worst team in the league, who ended a 22-game road losing streak with the victory. "This is something that we know is unacceptable in any walk of life, and especially performing at the level that we need to perform at night in and night out to be successful," said Washington coach Leonard Hamilton.

COLLEGE PARK -- Disguised in the artificial atmosphere of a nonconference game, the moment of truth arrives this afternoon at Cole Field House for Maryland's beleaguered basketball team.The Terps will greet it -- and the Missouri Tigers -- at something less than 100 percent.They will play without senior co-captain Duane Simpkins, who is serving a three-game NCAA suspension for an improper loan payment. He will be replaced at point guard for the second straight game by two freshmen.They will play with their biggest inside force -- freshman Obinna Ekezie -- nursing a pulled groin muscle that limits lateral movement.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- On a day when North Carolina's favorite son ended his singular basketball career, Maryland's veterans made history of their own on the Tar Heels' turf. Obinna Ekezie, Laron Profit and Terrell Stokes joined a select group last night, when No. 5 Maryland beat No. 9 North Carolina, 89-76, before 21,572 at the Smith Center. The Terps overcame severe front-line foul trouble with a 3-2 zone and used a 12-2 spurt to turn a tenuous 67-63 lead into a romp. It was Maryland's third win in its past four trips to North Carolina, and the hat trick for the seniors was something that had been accomplished only by other Tobacco Road rivals, and then only once since 1963.

COLLEGE PARK -- Gary Williams said from Day One that this is the most athletic basketball team he has ever had at Maryland, and yesterday it might have enjoyed its finest 40 minutes of flight. The No. 7 Terps grounded No. 12 North Carolina, 81-64, before a sellout crowd of 14,500 at Cole Field House, where the lumbering Tar Heels were unable to cope with Maryland's quickness. The Terps (22-4, 10-3) completed a stressful five days with a resounding reminder that they are the second-best team in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

COLLEGE PARK -- The chalk flits across the blackboard, leaving a trail of mind-boggling ciphers and diagrams."OK, now, does everyone understand?" asks the man up front.From his seat, Obinna Ekezie stares and nods. Yes, the squiggles and arrows and X's and O's make sense to Ekezie, the 6-foot-10 senior center on Maryland's basketball team last season.In fact, this might have been a pre-game pep talk, except that the man at the chalkboard isn't a basketball coach but a college professor -- and the symbols aren't game-winning plays but mathematic equations that would dumbfound Dick Vitale.

It has been 34 days since they put an extension on the operating table at Kernan Hospital in Baltimore. The patient: Obinna Ekezie, the 6-foot-10 basketball center for the University of Maryland.Upright, Ekezie engaged opponents on the court. Prone, he challenged surgeons who repaired the ruptured Achilles' tendon that ended the 23-year-old's college career last month.How bad was Ekezie's injury?"It looked like a rope that had been pulled apart in a tug-of-war," said Dr. Leigh Ann Curl, the Terrapins' team physician, who performed the operation.

COLLEGE PARK -- Obinna Ekezie jumped. He pivoted. He jammed. He threw his weight around in a pickup basketball game against the Terps at Cole Field House. And his heel held up.Seven months after tearing his right Achilles' tendon, Ekezie returned to his old haunt, going full tilt last week for the first time since the injury that cut short his senior season. His return lacked hoopla -- no crowd, cameras or cheerleaders. Just a bunch of Maryland players and Ekezie, Vancouver's No. 2 pick in the NBA draft.

COLLEGE PARK -- The sound is etched in his mind.One month later, Obinna Ekezie can still hear the surreal pop in his heel that leveled him during practice at Cole Field House -- his Achilles' tendon ruptured."

COLLEGE PARK -- Obinna Ekezie wants to make a splash in the NBA draft in June.First, he must jump in the pool. For Ekezie, who was Maryland's center, the swim he takes three or four times a week in the Campus Recreation Center is far more than a dip. It's therapy to strengthen his right foot and the Achilles' tendon he ruptured at practice Feb. 11.The injury abruptly ended the senior's college basketball career and assured that he'd spend the months preceding...