Well, about 35 minutes until the Terrapin men’s basketball team is schedule to tip off against North Carolina here at Comcast Center, the students are here and some of the paying customers as well.
As per an ACC rule stating that if the visitors and at least two officials make it to the site, today’s show had to go on. It hasn’t really been an easy last few days for either team. With the mega snow dump on the College Park area in recent days, Terp coach Gary Williams has been sleeping at the arena. The defending national champions caught a Friday flight to the area, just hours after returning home from a Thursday night loss at Virginia.
“We’re both dealing with it, so there’s no disadvantage or advantage here,” Williams said. “It’s not a normal routine, but it’s not normal for either team. You have to deal with it.”
If the weather hadn’t thrown the team’s schedules into disalignment and threatened this game happening on this day, the major story line would’ve been the decline of the Tar Heels.
They come into this game at 13-9 with a 2-5 record in ACC play. They’ve lost six of their last eight games and don’t much resemble the Tyler Hansbrough-led team that rolled through last season’s ACC slate.
You might recall last season’s meeting between these teams in College Park ended with a court-storming after an emotional 88-85 overtime Terp win over the then-No. 3 Tar Heels. This time around, a win will be much less surprising.
The Terps are coming off a 71-67 win at Florida State, completing a regular season-sweep of the Seminoles. In that win, Greivis Vasquez, Landon Milbourne, Eric Hayes and Jordan Williams combined for 67 points, so keep an eye on the Terps’ bench production today. They are 3-0 at home in ACC play this season, each time wearing the gold jerseys they are rocking today.
All I can say for sure is that the Tar Heels got a vociferous boo when they just re-took the floor that turned into a pretty hearty chant. If Gary Williams’ squad had to pick a smaller than normal crowd to play in front of, it seems like the right ones showed up to at least come close to the normal home atmosphere. And it should fill up a bit more when the students without tickets are admitted at 1:45 p.m.
Continue to follow the game here, on Twitter (www.twitter.com/DBKSports), and look out for a gamer on www.diamondbackonline.com (even if we don’t print an actual paper if the university is closed tomorrow.)
Eric Detweiler is The Diamondback’s Terrapin Men’s Basketball Team beat writer. He can be reached at edetweilerdbk@gmail.com. You can follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/edetweiler.