We’re bringing this back tonight. Some observations compiled during the Terrapin men’s basketball team’s 73-68 win Saturday night vs. Miami.

-You have to give Gary Williams credit for showing the chutzpah to put a little (well, actually a lot) extra into his pregame fist pump. It looked like a nice “eff-you” to his detractors or anyone who thinks he might be contemplating stepping down anytime soon.

-The Terps came out with better-than usual defensive intensity. Their defensive pressure forced a timeout and a 10-second violation in the first couple minutes and they kept it up for most of the night. They forced the Hurricanes to work for nearly every shot.

-Eric Hayes still looked a little lost out there early. Right after he entered the game off the bench for the first time this season, Hayes badly missed a reverse layup and wasn’t able to get to a pass floated near him that he easily could have stolen. He finally hit a three late in the first half to get him going a little bit, and he finished with a respectable eight points in 21 minutes. 

-Ralph Friedgen is really getting into the game from his seat in the front row right next to the hoop near the Terps’ bench. He’s waving his arms at the referee, throwing up his hands. It’s very entertaining. 

-There is very little flow to this game. Time seems to just keep running off the clock with neither team getting anything established.

-Jin Soo Kim is back. Shortly after he entered the game late in the first half, the reinstated forward drove the baseline and finished with a strong dunk in traffic. He got a standing ovation during the ensuing media timeout, and had his name chanted at him after he hit a three in the second half.

-The second half is very similar to the first. Gritty play, points hard to come by, a lot of missed shots.

-Sean Mosley has really played well the past couple of games. His dunk with 12:05 remaining expanded the Terps’ lead to 10 and was one of the key plays in a second half where the Terps’ level of play actually accelerated rather than fall apart.

-Jack McClinton is slowly heating up for the Hurricanes in the second half. Showing off his impressive range, the senior guard from Baltimore finished with 18 points on 6-for-15 shooting.

-This was a hard-fought win. The Terps stayed tough all night and were able to keep the Hurricanes at arm’s length all the way through to the finish. With a road date at UNC coming up next on Tuesday, it was important to get this one to avoid a major losing streak. Given all that’s happened this week, give the team credit.

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Coach Brenda Frese and her two star players, Marissa Coleman and Kristi Toliver, seemed more down than usual after their 89-81 loss at No. 19 Virginia last night.

During the day, Frese and UVA coach Debbie Ryan flew down to Cary, N.C., to attend the funeral of longtime N.C. State coach Kay Yow, Hall-of-Famer and sister of Maryland AD Debbie Yow, who passed away last weekend after a long fight against breast cancer.

“It puts it into perspective,” Frese said. “It’s hard, going down and seeing coach Yow, but you know with tip-off you just want to be able to go out and play as hard as you possibly can.”

Coleman and Toliver also seemed especially bothered, but more by the way the Terps let a patiently constructed nine-point lead with 15:35 remaining disintegrate in a matter of minutes.

Toliver looked zapped of energy, with her head slightly down and her eyes gazing at one spot for most of the post game presser- not her usual engaging self. Coleman simply looked angry, as if she was annoyed the Terps still were having trouble finding the toughness to win road games.

They both spoke tersely about how Virginia out-hustled and outworked them in the second half, and maybe I’m wrong, but I got the sense that this loss hurt more than their three others.

Losing at TCU on opening night with two new starters is one thing. Getting blown out visiting a ranked Pitt team at the end of a long road trip is another. But letting a conference game get away in the nature they did Friday night can be tough to handle.

Of course, the great thing about this year’s deep and talented ACC is you’ll always have another chance to make a statement, and soon. On Monday night, the Terps travel to first-place and 6-0 Florida State.

A win in Tallahassee and it would mean lessons learned. A continuation of the road struggles could mean Friday night at UVA wasn’t an aberration, but representative of a deeper pattern.

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Hey folks, women’s basketball beat reporter Aaron Kraut here, back in College Park.

It turns out the roughly two hour drive home was useful, as it gave me some time to try and figure out just how the No. 8 Terps lost this game tonight.

What’s perplexing wasn’t just that they were in control of the game (the Terps led 49-40 with 15:35 remaining) or how they gained control.

Point guard Kristi Toliver, the team’s leading scorer and best shot maker sat out the final 13 minutes of the first half because of two fouls, but the Terps smartly built an eight point halftime lead. Usually, it’s a pretty good indicator for your team when you can do that without your best pure offensive player.

It was also hard to grasp just how fast the bottom fell out.

From the 15:35 mark to when there was about 7:40 left, the Terps were outscored 27-8. The offense, patient and productive in the first half, became forced and erratic.

Turnovers after missed shots after turnovers were converted into Cavalier fast break points, and the rest was history.

No. 19 Virginia scored an astounding 58 points in the second half, some of which came as a result of the Terps’ giving away fouls in the late minutes, but still a lot.

In fact, now that I think about it, I still haven’t figured this one out. I’m not alone- neither could coach Brenda Frese.

Check back tomorrow for some of her comments and further analysis.

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Miami was one of the approved topics at Gary Williams’ media availability this afternoon, and the beleaguered coach had a few things to say about Saturday night’s opponent.

The Hurricanes (14-6, 3-4 ACC) beat the Terps 62-60 in Coral Gables on Jan. 14.

Senior guard Jack McClinton is the ‘Canes leading scorer and one of the best players in the ACC, averaging 18.4 points per game this season.

He scored 18 in the last game against the Terps, including the game-winning three with 24 seconds left in the game, and Williams said there are a couple of things the Terps will try to do to contain him, especially in those late game situations.

“They run him off the screens so you can double team him coming off the screens,” Williams said. “There’s some things you can do. You can put more pressure on the ball so it’s not as easy a pass to get it to McClinton to start with. They’re all things we’ll look at and we’ll try some things.”

Williams also answered a question about junior forward Dwayne Collins, who is second on the Hurricanes averaging 12.6 points per game and is the team’s leading rebounder with 7.6 boards per game.

“I think Collins–he’s very confident,” Williams said. “When you’re a player if you have two or three moves that you can do really well, I think that’s all you need.  Collins has really improved his two or three moves rather than added a lot to his game. He’s really effective close to the basket. He’s probably one of the best post-up players in the league.”

You wouldn’t think that would bode well for a Terp team who doesn’t defend average post players all that well, but they did hold Collins to just six points in that first meeting.

As I pointed out Thursday, this is probably one of the few remaining winnable games for the Terps this season. They really need this one to stop the bleeding this past week has caused.

Tip-off is set for 8 p.m. at Comcast.

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You’ve heard about the issues, both on the court and off it. Seems like the Terp men’s basketball team is falling apart.

But how bad is the situation, really?

The Terps suffered a historically bad loss to the team everyone loves to hate, the Duke Blue Devils. They squandered two significant leads, against Boston College and Miami. The lineup and talent level can leave much to be desired. At 13-7 (2-4 ACC) and ninth place in the conference, the Terps are far off-pace in the race for an NCAA Tournament berth.

Sounds pretty bleak.

Let’s take a step back, though. Last season, the Terps were 12-8 (2-3 ACC) at this point in the season, nearly identical to this year’s record. Last year’s team did beat Morgan State, but lost to mid-majors Ohio and American. If you throw in this season’s win against then-No. 5 Michigan State in December, the Terps were even outperforming last year’s squad until this end-of-January slump.

So the Terps have not had a high-caliber ACC win, like they did last year against No. 1 North Carolina, to boost the fans’ spirits and maybe impres s the NCAA committee. And they did suffer a demoralizing 41-point defeat at the hands of Duke. But the conference schedule is less than halfway through.

Last year, the Terps won four in a row starting Jan. 30 and as March approached were even in contention for a spot in the NCAA tournament. They just missed March Madness, ending the season a respectable if disappointing 18-13 (8-8 ACC).

This season, 10 games, including five against top-10 opponents, remain, providing ample opportunity for the team to stage a (however unlikely) comeback.

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The past week has been an absolute nightmare for the Terrapin men’s basketball team, easily the worst stretch since at least the very beginning of coach Gary Williams’ tenure.

A 41-point loss at Duke, a blown 16-point lead at home against Boston College and a public feud between Williams and the Athletics Department that became national news.

Winning is usually the best solution to any problem, but unfortunately for the Terps, there simply aren’t many winnable games left on their schedule.

Starting with Saturday night’s home game against Miami, the Terps have 10 games left before a probable first-round loss in the ACC tournament and a possible game in the NIT (though at this rate Terp fans might be getting their first look at the CBI instead).

In my humble opinion, the Terps will be lucky to win an absolute maximum of three more games–which would put them at 5-11 in the ACC–but could very conceivably go winless the rest of the way.

That’s not even being pessimistic, that’s just the way things are in the ACC when Dave Neal is your starting center.

Let’s go game-by-game…

You can throw out the home-and-home against North Carolina (Feb. 3 and Feb. 21), the game at Clemson (Feb. 17) and the home games against Duke (Feb. 25) and Wake Forest (Mar. 3). Those four teams are just too strong this year, and an upset like the ones the Terps scored the last two seasons against UNC just don’t seem remotely possible this time around.

Miami has been somewhat of a disappointment this year, but they’ve already beaten the Terps once this season and have beaten the Terps six out of seven times since joining the ACC. This is probably the Terps’ best shot at a win, but given the trends a loss wouldn’t be surprising.

The Terps other remaining home game is against Virginia Tech, who beat Wake Forest this season and who is 4-2 against the Terps since joining the conference.  The Hokies will be tough.

That leaves road games against Georgia Tech, North Carolina State and Virginia. The Terps beat Georgia Tech and Virginia already, and N.C. State isn’t anything special, but it’s never easy to win on the road in this conference. The Terps may win one of these three, but that’s probably it.

So you have five games left with no chance of winning, and five others in which a win is varying levels of improbable.

A 12-game losing streak probably won’t happen. But it certainly could.

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