GREENSBORO, N.C.—We headed back to the Greensboro Coliseum around noon today with high expectations for semifinal Saturday.
The lunch buffet did not disappoint, offering salads, deli sandwiches, barbecued pot roast and some sort of marinated chicken. Add in the always-open complimentary snack cart—highlighted by dark chocolate Haagen Dazs Bars—and the beverage cooler, and the Coliseum wins far and away for media hospitality at arenas the Terps played in this season.
Even with the absurd $89 per day wireless internet access.
The first semifinal was pretty entertaining, with Virginia staying with North Carolina for about a half before the Tar Heels pulled away in the second half for an 80-65 win.
The Terps’ contingent of fans grew to encompass part of a fourth section today, and when the Terps appeared to watch some of the second half of the Cavaliers-Tar Heels game, they were given a standing ovation.
After the Terps and Duke took the court for warmups before the second semifinal, the reporter from the Duke student paper told me he was banking on a Terps’ win so he could go home—to Rockville, Md. of all places—for spring break.
(Another interesting note about the Duke Chronicle: They didn’t send a reporter here for their quarterfinal game last night because they assumed it would be a win, and it wasn’t worth the trip. Durham is about an hour away.)
The Terps were wearing their road black uniforms, an interesting choice for the higher seed. When asked, a team source said the Terps wore black “because they wanted to.”
The somewhat unexpected 74-63 loss soured the day for everybody, and both we and the Terps will be heading home a little early.
After opening up an early lead, the Terps just didn’t seem to have the intensity or the desire to win to keep up with the Blue Devils.
They’ll be back in action for the NCAA tournament two weeks from tomorrow, but almost definitely not as a No. 1 seed.
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