Terps out for blue blood

In the wake of Wednesday's dominant victory against Florida State, Dino Gregory said he wasn't scared of the Terrapin men's basketball team's next opponent.

After all, if anyone should be wary Sunday, it's No. 19 North Carolina. Gregory and senior guards Adrian Bowie and Cliff Tucker have a commanding 3-1 career record against the Tar Heels in their four-year career, and another win this weekend might be their biggest yet.

As their NCAA Tournament hopes remain tenuously intact, the Terps have highlighted Sunday's date in Chapel Hill, N.C., as a must-win. The Tar Heels (21-6, 11-2 ACC) will be the first ranked team the Terps have faced since No. 1 Duke trampled them in Comcast Center on Feb. 2 and may be the last they'll see this season. For the Terps, they offer one last glimmer of hope to secure a high-profile victory.

"To win on the road at Carolina would definitely spark our whole entire season," said forward Jordan Williams. "We're going in with a vengeance. We want to win. We want it bad."

Williams, who helped rout North Carolina last season, has never played in the Dean Dome, the ACC's largest arena. But he's looking forward to Sunday's opportunity.

"Growing up as a kid, it's a school you always see," Williams said. "Michael Jordan played there and Vince Carter and a lot of great players. It has a lot of history behind the court."

He didn't have to wander far from his locker Wednesday night to find answers on how to beat the Tar Heels. The Terps' three seniors have been involved in two separate upsets of top-three North Carolina teams, including upending the then-No. 1 Tar Heels in Chapel Hill in 2008.

"We want to beat Carolina just as bad as we want to beat Duke," Bowie said. "We don't consider them rivals, but we want to beat them."

"We're not scared to go against them," Gregory added. "We've had some success before down there and we know it's possible to beat them."

This year's North Carolina team isn't on quite the same level as its 2009 national championship squad or the one consistently ranked in the top five in 2008. Still, the Tar Heels have won nine of their past 10 games and, according to coach Gary Williams, "a lot of people think they're playing at a top-10 level right now."

The Terps' recent offensive surge — they've scored at least 78 points in four of the past five games — has come at just the right time. With the emergence of North Carolina freshman point guard Kendall Marshall and freshman forward Harrison Barnes, the Tar Heels have escaped last year's surprising scoring doldrums to produce one of the most prolific offenses in the country. A long and athletic frontline might also pose serious problems for the Terps.

"It's going to be a tough game," Gary Williams said. "They're playing for a lot of things, but we're also playing for a lot of things right now."

Ever since the Terps lost to the Blue Devils three weeks ago, many bracketologists have circled Sunday's game as perhaps the team's last hope to impress the NCAA Tournament selection committee.

The Terps are 0-5 against ranked teams this year, and Wednesday's victory against Florida State marked the first time the team has defeated an RPI top-50 team. A win against North Carolina, the team knows, would start to quiet some doubters.

"It means everything right now," Bowie said. "It's the biggest opportunity for us now. They're going to be ranked; it's going to be at their place; it's going to be a very good game. Harrison Barnes is playing great right now; Kendall Marshall is playing great. It should be a lot of fun."

ceckard@umdbk.com