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EVENTS
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
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What We Learned Maryland, Georgetown survive 'D.C. Invite'
Updated: Sunday March 18, 2001 12:32 PM By Albert Chen, Sports Illustrated BOISE, Idaho -- How appropriate that first- and second-round West Region play here came to a whimper of a close (Thursday: four games decided by seven points; Saturday: two games, 38 points), with Maryland and Georgetown left standing. When the draw first came out on Selection Sunday, the Boise bracket was dubbed the Washington, D.C., Metro Area Invitational with three teams (the Terps, the Hoyas and George Mason) arriving from the Beltway. Even Georgia State had strong connections to the area: Its star, Shernard Long, was Georgetown's leading scorer four years ago before transferring. Its head coach, Lefty Driesell, was once the boss at Maryland. And so the first round began with the warm, fuzzy feel of a family reunion: Driesell charmed the media with his grin and humorous musings; Maryland put on a show for fans during its Wednesday afternoon shootaround with a high-flying, no-layups-allowed exhibition; and D.C. media members went golfing together on the Friday off day. Saturday, though, was all business, and as Cinderella began her exit from the draw, leaving the big boys to duke it out, things even got a bit testy when a reporter asked Driesell if he felt emotional seeing the Maryland players on the court: "Maryland don't mean anything to me. I didn't have any emotions at all. I was trying to win a basketball game. That's a ridiculous question. Why would I be emotional looking at Maryland? They were our enemy today."
How tough is Georgetown?With 10:52 left in the first half, Hampton's Marseilles Brown lobbed a perfect pass to Cleveland Davis, who emphatically slammed it home. The alley-oop tied the game at 16 and sent the crowd into a frenzy. Pirates head coach Steve Merfeld jumped up and down on the sideline, throwing his fists wildly in the air. Hampton may want to start scheduling some of its home games next season at the Boise State University Pavilion. At the end of the first half of the Maryland-Georgia State game, the Pirates' band and cheerleaders entered the arena and the Boise crowd got so loud that Maryland players were looking around wondering what was going on. Needless to say, Georgetown faced a formidable crowd and a red-hot team, and after Davis' jam it seemed there was no way this Hampton team was going to be denied the Sweet 16. How did the Hoyas respond? With a 26-6 run. Then in the second half, Mike Sweetney, without question the Hoyas' most talented player, was called for a cheap foul on Brown. After a spat with the official, he was tagged with a technical -- his fifth foul -- and suddenly Sweetney was out of the game with 10 points and seven rebounds. How did the Hoyas respond? They kept their cool (thanks to timely timeouts by head coach Craig Esherick), and they survived and advanced to Anaheim with a 19-point win. Combined with a gutsy win against Arkansas and its 40 Minutes of Heck (that's what coach Nolan Richardson calls it now that SEC regulations prevent conference coaches from using profanity; it doesn't have quite the same ring, though), Georgetown survived Boise with a toughness that none of the seven other teams showed. We knew the Hoyas could rebound. (They outrebounded the Pirates 51-27.) We knew they had a sizable frontcourt. But we didn't know how well this team would respond in a tough, tight spot. The victory against Hampton was unspectacular and certainly one of the least memorable wins of the past three days, but in some ways, it was the most impressive.
Maryland gets defensiveMaryland is obviously an entertaining team to watch. In many ways, the Terps are Georgetown's opposite. Terence Morris and Juan Dixon are two of the smoothest players around. There's a lot of style on this team, but as Maryland showed Thursday in an underwhelming win against 14th-seeded George Mason, the substance is sometimes lacking. The Terrapins arrived at the arena early on Saturday with a simple goal in mind: to play aggressively against Georgia State. They pounded the ball inside (30 of Maryland's 41 first-half points came in the paint), but the reason why they once again looked like a championship contender was their defense.
It's easy to forget that 'D' is the strength of this Maryland team. During the season, the Terps held opponents to just more than 40 percent shooting. Georgia State was horrific from the field because of a quick, suffocating defense; the Panthers shot 30.8 percent for the game. Maryland led by only four at the half, largely because of a spectacular scoring performance from Georgia State guard Long, who pumped in 16 first-half points. Long didn't score in the first 14 minutes after intermission. By then, Maryland had established a 14-point lead and had its charter plane warmed up for the Terps' next stop: Anaheim.
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