Checking in live from Comcast Center, both Florida State and the Terps are warming up on the main floor, and with the match set to begin in roughly half an hour, there are some important things to note.

1. The stands are still very empty.

When I got here, there were a lot of students upstairs walking around, but now that I’m sitting on the main floor, only a few spectators line the sides of the student section and no one has even begun to sit on the wall. There are also only about 30 non-student spectators already here. It looks as if the students at the entrance were here for one thing: the free t-shirt.

2. But there’s still time.

With the volleyball match not starting for another half hour, the stands will have plenty of time to fill up, and like I mentioned in my article today, the crowd should be much larger than what the Terps are used to.

3. This year’s t-shirt looks almost identical to last year.

This isn’t particularly newsworthy, but it caught my attention. This year’s shirt is red with “Maryland Basketball” on the front, and once again a giant Pepsi logo adorns the backside. (And yes, I got my free t-shirt, I’m a student too)

4. Florida State is as good as advertised.

Watching the Seminoles warm up proved one thing to me: they’re really good. Their hits look flawless, and it looks like their attack is going to be strong – the No. 17 ranking is well deserved. The Terps are going to need to step up the effort on the defensive side of the ball if they want to win tonight.

More to come later, with a full recap at the conclusion of the night.

UPDATE: It seems the spirit of basketball lives on despite the lack of a basketball game going on. When Florida State’s roster was introduced, after each player the crowd gave them a good ‘ol Maryland welcome by yelling “sucks” after every name announced.

Terps starting six: Katie Usher, Remy McBain, Taylor Jones, Lisa Scott, Brittney Grove and Maddi Lee.

Sam Rosario is starting at libero.

Jakob Engelke is The Diamondback’s volleyball beat reporter. He can be reached at engelkedbk@gmail.com. you can follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Jakob_Engelke.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 16th, 2009 at 5:06 pm and is filed under Volleyball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.