Terps

Baltimore Sun reporters Jeff Barker and Don Markus and editor Matt Bracken weigh in on the three biggest topics of the past week in Maryland sports. Is Maryland better off developing Roddy Peters and Seth Allen as its point guards rather than bringing in Antonio Barton for one season? Don Markus: A lot of college coaches, Mark Turgeon included, want to take advantage of the NCAA's fairly recent legislation that allows players who have graduated from one school to finish their careers at another as long as they can find a graduate program that doesn't exist at the first school.

While Maryland's prolific attack has drawn nearly all the limelight generated by a 19-0 season and an all-but-certain No. 1 seed when the NCAA tournament field is announced Sunday night, the defense can take a lot of credit for that big, fat zero in the loss column, especially after last weekend's Atlantic Coast Conference championship. Terps defenders Iliana Sanza, Melissa Diepold, Kristen McAfee, Shanna Brady, Megan Douty and Alice Mercer held North Carolina to one goal in a nearly 28-minute span through the middle of Sunday's ACC title game as Maryland turned a 3-2 deficit into a 12-4 lead.

No. 11 Maryland will not skate through Saturday's regular-season finale against visiting Colgate — the Terps must win to cement a seed and a home game in the first round of the NCAA tournament. They will also have another motivation: history. The Raiders have ended Maryland's regular season with losses in 2011 and 2012, forcing the Terps to open the NCAA tournament on the road. It did not terribly damage them as they advanced to the national title game in both years, but coach John Tillman said he has not had to remind Maryland (9-3)

For as long as Will Ulmer can remember, Maryland has been his favorite college football team. The Terps' well-documented struggles never seemed to bother the St. John's (D.C.) quarterback. Even as Ulmer began to accumulate scholarships from college football powers across the country, the Laurel native kept coming back to his strong feelings about the program down the road in College Park. “[I was just thinking about] staying home and being a local guy / local star just doing it for the hometown team,” Ulmer said Wednesday.

College lacrosse More colleges Robinson pitches Terps past Towson in baseball, 11-3 Freshman left-hander Alex Robinson gave Maryland (26-21) seven strong innings and the offense scored in six of its eight turns at-bat in an 11-3 win over visiting Towson (21-22). Robinson surrendered only one run on six hits with seven strikeouts over seven innings, which tied a personal best. Robinson, who has received a no-decision in eight of his 11 starts, received plenty of offensive support Tuesday.

With an 8-6 record and one final regular-season contest at No. 11 Maryland, Colgate has not been mathematically eliminated from consideration for an at-large berth in the NCAA tournament. But unlike last year when the team went 13-3 in the regular season and garnered only the program's second tournament appearance, coach Mike Murphy is not holding out for another at-large spot when the 16-team bracket is unveiled Sunday night. “I'm sure there's probably some sort of mathematical substance to that, but we're 29th in the RPI, and I don't know that a team outside of the top 17 or 18 in the RPI has ever made it to the NCAA tournament that wasn't an automatic qualifier,” he said Tuesday.

No one player makes - or breaks - a team. That is especially true for No. 11 Maryland, where the concept of team is emphasized in nearly every comment from the players and coach John Tillman. John Haus is one of the Terps who fully endorses that model. But if anyone is looking to cast blame for the team's recent offensive woes, the senior midfielder is prepared to absorb the criticism. “I think all over, we've been low in production. As a senior, I take some of that on my shoulders,” he said Tuesday.

Editor's note: Each week, InsideMdSports.com provides this blog with a Maryland recruiting feature that previously appeared as premium content on its site. With Dez Wells, Jake Layman and Nick Faust returning next season, each still an underclassman, Maryland's in no great need of small forward types. But regardless of roster make-up, you never stop looking for potential impact players, and Terry Larrier may be one such example. It's unknown if the Terps have officially offered Larrier, a fast-rising 2014 forward from the Bronx, N.Y., but there's no question they're interested.

Penn State has had a run of the neighborhood for as long as anyone can remember, from its years as the most successful independent Division I-A football program on the East Coast and a national power, to a little more than the past two decades in the Big Ten. As the Nittany Lions continue to rebuild and rebrand in the aftermath of the off-field child abuse scandal that ended the legendary career of Joe Paterno in 2011 and brought unprecedented sanctions...

For the second time in three weeks, a somewhat surprising loss dropped Maryland out of the top five in the latest Rating Percentage Index list - also known as RPI - released by the NCAA Monday evening. Friday's 13-6 setback to unranked Virginia (7-8) caused the Terps (9-3) to slip from No. 3 in RPI to No. 7. Maryland encountered a similar fall after losing to Johns Hopkins, 7-4, on April 13 and slipping from No. 4 to No. 8. Perhaps the only positive outcome from the loss to the Cavaliers was their move up to No. 20, which gives the Terps a fourth top 20 victory.