COLLEGE PARK -- Beating La Salle in December doesn't really mean much, of course. But neither does losing to Massachusetts.
Blowing out Morgan State and Towson State and Colgate doesn't prove anything. But neither does getting upset by Arizona State.
No, if you're the Maryland Terrapins and you're already pretty sure there's an NCAA tournament invitation out there with your name on it, the college basketball regular season isn't really about wins and losses.
How can it be when the sole barometer for gauging success and failure is your performance in the postseason?
The Terps should know that by now, after the way they stumbled through the last half of the regular season a year ago before upsetting UMass in the tournament to stake a claim as one of the game's new powers. Basically, that one glorious afternoon rendered irrelevant all that had preceded it.
Thus do we arrive at what the Terps really need to accomplish as they dribble their way through a regular season attended by so much hype and hullabaloo:
Shorten their shortcomings. Improve. Try to fix what ails them. In short, try to give themselves a better chance of making noise in March, when the scorekeeping gets serious and the success or failure of the season is determined.
Sure, winning big games in December, January and February can tell you a lot about where you stand and whether you're doing the right things, but as Mike Krzyzewski said one night a few years ago after an intense game at Cole Field House, "In the regular season, I'll always take a good performance over a win."
What the Terps need to work on to become a better tournament team is obvious. They need consistent outside shooting. They need to develop a useful bench. They need Duane Simpkins to be a big-time point guard in big games. They need to find ways to get Franchise Sophomore Joe Smith the ball when they really need him to have it.
The latter item is a bit of a surprise because Smith is already the team's cornerstone and leading scorer. But sometimes the Terps have trouble getting him the ball in their half-court offense. He scores a lot of his points on rebounds, loose balls, fast breaks and sliding drives into the lane. It's not that often that he sets up in the post, gets fed the ball and scores.
It is a problem that tends to come up in the final minutes against top teams, as it did against UMass. If your best player can't win the game for you, you're hamstrung.
Getting Smith the ball down the stretch of a close game is never easy, of course, because opponents double-team and even triple-team him. As splendid as he is, even he can't overcome that.
"There's not much you can do then," Smith said after last night's 96-80 win over La Salle. "Just work hard to make something happen. It's something we work on in practice every day."
Said coach Gary Williams: "I like to think we can get Joe the ball when we need to. You can always do better."
The Terps' shooting is, of course, a shortcoming that has received the most attention, for obvious reasons: They shot a pedestrian 45 percent a year ago. Williams insisted they'd be better this year, and indeed, they're at 54 percent, although they reverted to their clunking ways against UMass.
"We're [shooting] much better overall so far," Simpkins said last night, "but the test will come against North Carolina and the other teams that change defenses and run a lot of things at you."
Improvement in the shooting is directly tied to the improvement in the bench, because the team's two best outside shooters are reserves, junior Mario Lucas and freshman Sarunas Jasikevicius. Rodney Elliott, the freshman from Dunbar, is the other reserve Williams was hoping to use this year.
So far, only Lucas has proved his readiness for big-time opponents. The latest demonstration came last night, when he made three three-pointers without a miss, scored 18 points and had eight rebounds. He is emerging as the team's most improved player.
"I feel like a different player than I was a year ago," Lucas said.
Jasikevicius is the team's best pure shooter, but defensive problems have kept him on the bench. Williams says he is coming, and he was in for 14 solid minutes last night, but we'll see if he comes far enough to help in March. Same goes for Elliott, who may not be ready this year. How much they improve is critical to the team's fortunes.
"Five players just isn't enough," Lucas said last night. "Who has the best bench is going to tell who wins in the ACC and on beyond."
Last night showed how potent the Terps can be when their bench produces and they shoot well. La Salle was within three points at halftime, but the Terps shot 62 percent in the second half, Lucas went slightly wild and the game turned into a blowout. Simpkins ("I'm over the UMass game," he said) had the ball in the right hands all night.
In all, it was a big show against a decent team. But the win wasn't what really mattered. The bench-boosting performances of Lucas and Jasikevicius were what mattered. Those were the building blocks. And building for March is what the college basketball season is all about.