Ok so really, it's been quite awhile since I blogged on here. So much has happened beginning with the Ravens and ending with the Terps. The Ravens went on to kick some serious butt this year. They finished with a 13-3 regular season record: their best ever!! We even snagged a first round bye in the playoffs. We thought this would help tremendously, but instead I think it hindered our performance quite a bit. We came into the Divisional playoff round real cocky and with super egos. Granted, our regular season performance warranted some of these emotions, but we were playing the freakin' Colts for God's sake. We hate the Colts. They used to be us. We used to root for the horseshoe. Now we despise it, that is unless it's on our Johnny U throwback. They were coming to our house once again, and this time we really wanted to beat them, it meant more now than it ever did before.
Of course the Ravens choked. There wasn't a touchdown scored the entire game between either team. Here the Ravens defense held the top ranked Indy offense to zero, nada, nilch touchdowns. All our offense needed to do was a score a TD, get in the end zone, cross the goal line, whatever you want to call it. Could they do that? Could Steve "Air" McNair air it out to D-Mason or hit up Mark Clayton? Hells no. He pulled out his most suckiest performance of the year. Technically, he had better numbers than Peyton "HARF" Manning, but still, Peyton got the Colts into our territory and set up Adam Vinatieri for the field goals. Something McNair couldn't get done. The turning point of the entire game was the interception McNair threw on the Colts 1-yd line. We were going in for the score at the end of the first half and he threw it away. He made a stupid pass and threw into double coverage. Had he looked around a little he would have saw that open man in the far corner of the end zone waiting to catch the play-of-the-day!! Instead, we lose. We lose to the Colts in Baltimore. Oh yeah, and the Colts go on to win the Super Bowl. Screw the Irsays! Fo' realz, yo.
Anyway, so yeah, football is done, so what's left? Why Maryland basketball, of course. The perennially disappointing men's basketball team was starting to suck again. We looked solid at the beginning of the season with big wins over Illinois and Michigan State. Then we hit ACC play with a thud, starting out 3-6 in the conference. The big ACC win for the Terps during that stretch was against Clemson. The Tigers came into Comcast as the last unbeaten with a 17-0 record. The odds were stacked against them, they were bound to lose. And of course they lost to our up-and-down Terps. It was our one legitimate conference win at that point. Then, of course, Clemson goes on a major slide and pretty much has stunk up the joint in the past two months. Seriously, I just heard last night that they're pretty much, barring a fantastic run in the ACC Tourney, going to become the only team to ever go 17-0 and not make the tournament. So now what for the Terps?
Well 9 games into the ACC season we meet up with enemy of the state #1, the Duke Blue Devils. Duke has lost 3 straight at this point, and the last time they lost 4 straight was when they sucked back in 1996 or something crazy like that. So odds are pretty much on Duke's side. The Terps are all over the place coming into this game, so no one thinks they can win except Terp fans. I have been saying since the beginning of the season that Duke is overrated and just not as good as everyone seems to think they are. I told my dad that no matter how bad Maryland is, we will beat Duke at least once this year, if not sweep them. We leave it as a "we'll see" scenario. So the big game comes, and Maryland beats the crap out of the Devils. It was Duke's most lopsided loss of the season! YES!! Goooo TERPS!! Now, all they have to do is keep it up. So what do the Terps do? They keep on winning.
They go on the road and win. They come home against what is arguably the best team in the ACC, University of North Carolina, and they start looking like their old selves. UNC gets a 12 point lead, the largest of the game, and Maryland looks desperate. Then all of a sudden it's like a light switch turning on. Mike Jones comes down the court and sinks a three, cutting the lead to 9. They get a defensive stop at the other end, and DJ Strawberry comes down and sinks a 3. YES! Now the lead is at 6. Maryland just keeps chipping away and they get their first lead of the game with 2:55 left. They keep the lead and go on to win by 2!! So now we have a 5 game winning streak, and guess who's up next? That's right ya'll!! It's the Dukies!!So cut to last night. Maryland is taking on the Blue Devils for the 2nd time in less than a month. This time it's on their turf. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Cameron Crazies, blah, blah, blah who cares? I certainly don't. And apparently Gary doesn't either!! Their fans are just robots using cheers that some committee came up with. That does not scare the Terps. Last night was no exception. Keeping up the win streak, the Terps stormed into Cameron looking for blood, and they returned to College Park the victors!! It was an insane game (you know between all the "technical difficulties" on ESPN's part and the commentators calling us on flops when Duke does it every drive), and it was good to see the freshmen's reaction to playing at Cameron. Here's a quote from Mr. Greivis Vasquez:
"I love when the crowd is on me," said Vasquez, who had 13 points, a career-high 12 assists and 9 rebounds. "They were trying to make me mad. They were talking about the president of Venezuela. I love it. It was so nice. I've got three more years, and it's going to be fun. They might be worried about me now."
The Terps have the best record at Cameron Indoor Stadium since the 99-00 season. The Terps have won 4 games, that's one more than Duke's "real" rival, UNC, and 3 more than anyone else. We're also the only team to sweep a season series with Duke since, well we did two seasons ago. We have Duke's number, and they need to recognize! A student writer who blogs at the Duke Chronicle had this to say about the Crazies last night:
"Covering tonight's loss to Maryland, I noticed that the environment was much better than it was at the Georgia Tech game. But for a game of this importance and against Duke's second-biggest rival, it was a little subdued. And I couldn't help but be dismayed at the lack of creativity of the Crazies as a whole and specifically the ones around my seat on press row.I'm convinced there are a lot of creative, passionate Cameron Crazies out there. But it just seems like I'm sitting in front of those that really don't know the game and end up embarrassing the Crazie population.
I'm all for going after the referees. They're the only ones between the lines getting paid for this, so they are clearly fair game. But some Crazies spend so much time yelling at the refs, they don't even seem to be cheering for Duke or paying attention to the game. My fellow writer heard one Crazie near us tonight yell to the ref, 'I hope you get cancer and die soon.' Umm, a little much."
The Terps, who are not ranked in ESPN/USA Today Poll and are #24 in the AP Poll, are seriously on a roll. They have one game left on Saturday at home against N.C. State. They have the momentum and are a projected #6 seed and rising by Joe Lunardi, the bracketologist. I can't believe that the Terps are back. I thought for awhile that they were gone, but this team is only getting better. Hopefully they make a good run through the ACC Tourney, and start kicking butt in the NCAAs!! It's so great that they're finally going back after a 2 year absence. We had an 11 year streak before we had an awful 2004-05 season. I think it's time to go streaking again!!
