Williams, Terps fire back at critics after Ga. Tech win

Terrapin forwards Ekene Ibekwe and Bambale Osby were among teammates Tuesday night who were watching ESPN's College GameNight when they became part of the show. In a segment about NCAA tournament chances, players said they heard analyst Digger Phelps state his doubts about the Terps ending their two-year absence from the tourney.

"You go to sleep, and you think about that. This is serious. This is real," Osby said. "A lot of people wrote us off. A lot of people said Maryland was at the bottom of the barrel; they're not gonna be able to get out of this."

Phelps hasn't been the only expert, fan or member of the media to offer skeptical remarks about the Terps' tournament hopes in the past few weeks. Far from it. Still, that experience crystallized the criticism that has built up over time, something coach Gary Williams and his players didn't forget about after beating Georgia Tech Wednesday night.

In his regular post-game radio interview that is broadcast over the public address system at Comcast Center, Williams said it was nice to be able to throw success back at people sometimes. Asked during his press conference about that remark and about outsiders losing faith in the program, Williams said people may have lost faith in this year's team but not in the program.

"But since we have the second-best winning percentage in the ACC for the last 10 years, I hope they don't lose faith in the program," Williams said. "And since we're the only team to have a better record at home than Duke does on the road in the ACC, I hope they don't lose faith in this program. We haven't had losing seasons yet."

Though the Terps' record the past two seasons is 38-26, two years without a trip to the NCAA tournament have led to plenty of harsh words in the media and caused banter on message boards and sports talk shows to heat up.

Losing two consecutive conference road games cranked up the volume on tourney talk, something freshman guard Eric Hayes said he and his teammates could do without.

"We definitely don't like hearing that stuff 'cause our main goal is to make the tournament," Hayes said. "Being 1-4 in the league, we definitely weren't doing things that we needed to do."

It certainly didn't hurt to have two sources of motivation. Amid negative talk and a losing streak, Ibekwe said the Terps took hold of the mentality that they didn't have anything to lose.

Whatever motivated them, the Terps jumped on Georgia Tech and were never in serious danger of losing. Senior guard D.J. Strawberry said afterward the Terps play their best when facing a must-win situation.

That sentiment was prevalent in the locker room, as was the satisfaction that the Terps had heard the reverberations of criticism and - at least for one night - silenced it.

"With a thing like that, you definitely have to use that as fuel to just come out and play hard and play strong and notice that we have our backs against the wall," Ibekwe said. "We have to keep the same mentality.

Contact reporter Stephen Whyno at whynodbk@gmail.com.