On night for a legend, Terps end up at a loss

With the ink of his signature on the Comcast Center floor still fresh, Gary Williams started to talk about the nights long before this one, before the former Terrapins men's basketball coach ever knew his name would one day be immortalized in Garyland.

He joked about his signature fist pump, noting that having a buttoned-up suit jacket disrupted his fist-pumping technique.

He talked about the big-game wins he became known for.

He recalled the process of dragging the Terps out of the doldrums of the Len Bias tragedy.

But most of all, he talked about the players. Greivis Vasquez. Juan Dixon. Steve Blake.

The list went on.

"It's always, always about the players," Williams said. "We had tremendous players during the 22 years I coached here."

Unfortunately for the long-time face of the Terps' program, the game that followed his final fist pump — for which, by the way, he gave himself a "B+" — served as nothing more than a somber reminder that that's simply no longer the case.

There was no Vasquez last night. There was no Dixon. There was just a group of young players with some talent who can't seem to take the next step. There was a 74-61 loss that dropped the Terps below .500 in ACC play.

"It's who we are," coach Mark Turgeon said after the Terps' third straight loss. "We're a young team. We're inexperienced. We make mental errors. We don't make free throws. … [But] I think we're getting closer in everything that we do."

As they've done all season, the Terps showed flashes last night. They burst out to an early 18-10 advantage, only to see the Blue Devils take a three-point lead into halftime as their adrenaline wore off and the game wore on.

Again in the second half, the Terps climbed back and claimed two separate leads. And again they didn't have enough to impede Duke's potent attack or jump-start their own.

It seemed the Terps had everything going for them early on, with a raucous crowd and a hot start. It looked like they might actually be able to hang around, with guards Sean Mosley and Pe'Shon Howard knocking down perimeter shots to help make up for Terrell Stoglin's first-half vanishing act. (The ACC's leading scorer entered halftime with just four points).

But appearances can be deceiving, especially with this Terps team. When Stoglin returned to form in the second half, Mosley and Howard all but disappeared. Even while Stoglin finished with a team-high 16 points, his abysmal 2-for-7 performance from the free-throw line marred an otherwise serviceable game.

Teams like Duke capitalize on those mistakes, and the Terps were left grappling with another loss to their rival.

There's no arguing that the Terps have vastly improved from the sloppy product we saw in the early parts of the season. They've developed an offensive pulse, and with each game, they move one step closer to being competitive with the nation's top programs.

That's all well and good, but it doesn't change the fact that they're not winning games.

"I definitely do [see progress]," Mosley said, "but, you know, we're not winning, so it's hard to say. If we're going to make any type of progress, we've got to come out with a win at the end of the day."

Mosley's words said it all. A night that started with a commemoration of the man who led the Terps to glory a decade ago had ended with yet another reminder of just how far the once-mighty Terps have fallen.

cwalsh@umdbk.com