3 Maryland

When he was in sixth grade, Maryland's senior forward Terence Morris was regularly beaten in games of H-O-R-S-E...by his mother. He wasn't good enough to start for his middle school team, and at Thomas Johnson High in Frederick, Md., he toiled in hoops anonymity until Terrapins coach Gary Williams stumbled upon him while scouting someone else. No wonder Morris, a preseason All-America, is college basketball's most reluctant star. He lacks the basic training. Playing against the Dream Team in a Sept. 2 Olympic tune-up game, Morris had a shot emphatically rejected by Kevin Garnett, who then barked, "You're not getting that in my house." Rather than feel dissed, Morris admired Garnett's attitude. "Competing against the pros showed me how much more aggressive I need to be," Morris says. "I'm working toward the day when I meet Garnett again and I can tell him what he told me."

Voted preseason ACC player of the year in October 1999, Morris averaged a solid 15.8 points and 8.6 rebounds but attempted fewer than 12 shots per game. As a testament to his talent, he was still projected as a potential lottery pick in June's NBA draft, but he returned to College Park to prove that he can thrive as the leader of perhaps the best team in Maryland history. "There will be times this season when we need Terence to carry us," Williams says. "But we have enough weapons that he doesn't need to score 25 every night for us to win."

All the attention paid to Morris last season created opportunities for sophomore center Lonny Baxter and sophomore shooting guard Juan Dixon, both of whom were voted first team All-ACC while Morris was relegated to the second team. Baxter, who arrived at Maryland in 1998 as a pudgy 6'8", 275-pound project so unknown that the name-plate above his locker in Cole Field House was—and still is—misspelled LONNIE, finished second in the ACC in rebounding, blocks and field goal percentage last season. Dixon, who is known as the Kid because at 6'3" and 164 pounds he is scrawny enough to pass for a seventh-grader, led the league in steals and was second in scoring. "Those are two guys motivated by years of people telling them what they couldn't do because of their size," Williams says. "They're now two very dangerous players who make their size work for them."

Another key cog in the Maryland machinery is sophomore point guard Steve Blake, who broke John Lucas's freshman record with 217 assists last season and will be entrusted to ratchet up the Terps' tempo this year. In addition to having all nine scholarship players back from a team that won 25 games last season, Maryland has added transfer swing-man Byron Mouton, who led Tulane in scoring in his two seasons with the Green Wave, and gifted 6'10" freshman Chris Wilcox, who will apprentice under Morris.

Eighty-seven teams have reached a Final Four in the 62 NCAA tournaments, and Maryland is arguably the most storied program not on that list. Williams, in his 12th season with the Terps, has grown weary of answering what he calls "the Gene Keady question": Is this the year you finally reach the Final Four? Though Williams's teams have played in seven straight NCAAs, the Terps haven't advanced beyond the Sweet 16 and suffered a humiliating 35-point loss to UCLA in the second round last March. "It's about time for the Terps to end a season with a good memory," Dixon says. "We're loaded, and if we don't get to the Final Four this time, you have to wonder if it's ever going to happen. This is our year."

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