READY TO BURST?

Gary Williams has faced the kind of pressure that comes with the expectations of guiding his Terrapin men's basketball team to the NCAA Tournament on a yearly basis.

As talks of March Madness intensify and bracketologists become fixtures on the college basketball landscape, the 22nd-year coach regularly finds himself fielding questions on the team's postseason portfolio: Is 10-6 in the conference good enough? What about 9-7? How will nonconference play affect the Terps' resumé?

With a 76-72 loss to Boston College on Saturday, Williams and his Terps (16-9, 5-5 ACC) took another step closer toward an unwanted spot in the NIT. Less than a year after a stress-free Selection Sunday, the Terps are struggling to even remain in contention for one of the spots in the 68-team field.

Tonight, they'll have a chance to at least momentarily salvage their season at Virginia Tech (16-7, 6-4). At .500 in a watered-down ACC with only six games remaining, both experts and those within the program agree the Terps need a victory to be more than a blip on the NCAA Tournament radar.

"They're all big at this point because Maryland needs wins," CollegeRPI.com basketball analyst Jerry Palm said. "They need to start beating teams. So much of the season has gotten away from them. They need quality wins, but they need to start just winning games."

Williams, for the moment, isn't focused on any numbers except those pertinent to the Hokies.

"I've been doing this for a long time," Williams said. "You can always win the ACC Tournament if you have to. I don't get caught up in that because that's wasted energy."

The only thing Williams says the Terps can control is today's outcome against Virginia Tech, another NCAA Tournament "bubble" team that beat the Terps by 17 last month at Comcast Center.

"You have to focus on what you can do, and what we can do is go down and get a win at Virginia Tech," Williams said. "That's what we can do right now."

Even with a win, the Terps' two-year streak of NCAA Tournament appearances would remain in jeopardy. In the minds of bracketologists and college basketball experts across the country, the team remains an afterthought, and little but a late-season winning streak will likely change that standing.

"Realistically, they're kind of out now," said Palm, who took the Terps off his list of potential bubble teams this week. "Looking at what they've done, unless they get hot ... there's still time, but they haven't shown you anything."

The Terps may have a great defense and the nation's double-doubles leader in forward Jordan Williams, but they don't yet have any "quality wins" — defined as a victory against a team in the RPI top 50 — to show for it. They have lost all eight games to teams ranked within that range and have just six wins against teams ranked among the RPI top 200.

This week, the Terps dropped to No. 89 in RPI, according to CollegeRPI.com. No team worse than No. 70 has ever made the tournament, while only one or two outside the top 50 regularly receive an invitation.

Add in the team's unimpressive nonconference strength of schedule (No. 156), and the Terps have little statistical support in arguing they deserve one of the 68 slots allotted for this year's NCAA Tournament.

Even close losses to nationally ranked teams such as Pittsburgh, Villanova and Duke won't figure much into the equation, according to Palm.

"If all you got is good losses, then you have nothing," Palm said. "The committee wants to see you beat NCAA Tournament-quality teams, not just hang with them."

Still, not all buy the talk.

"It's amazing how many really good experts there are out there that have it all figured out about who's going to be in the NCAA Tournament," Williams said. "It's going to depend on how you do the next three weeks basically. For everyone."

Added forward Dino Gregory: "The season's not over yet."

Williams said last week that if the Terps finish fifth in the ACC, they deserve a berth. Only two teams that have finished with a 10-6 conference record have ever missed the tournament since the ACC expanded in 2005.

Still, with the ACC down and a less-than-stellar nonconference showing, the Terps are in clear danger.

"You don't get in from what you do in your league alone," Palm said. "They look at the season as a whole."

Despite the gloomy outlook, the Terps believe a season-saving surge is imminent.

"We're not going to give up," Jordan Williams said. "We still have plenty of opportunities to make the tournament. We're not looking past that. We're going to keep fighting."

ceckard@umdbk.com