COLLEGE PARK -- They were dead. History. Down 14 points to the nation's No. 1 team in the first half, with Keith Booth on the bench in foul trouble and the boiling crowd reduced to a pip. On the biggest night of the regular season, the Maryland Terrapins had gotten too excited, lost their composure and forgotten to play. North Carolina was running them out of Cole Field House.
Then Mario Lucas hit a jumper. A rainbow. If it wasn't a 40-footer, it seemed like one. The ball left his hands from above the key, soared like a graceful bird and clipped neatly through the net. Three points, Super Mario. And there wasn't a Terps fan anywhere who didn't wonder: "Could it happen again?"
Eleven months earlier in Wichita, Kan., the Terps had been double-digit down to Massachusetts in the second half of their second-round NCAA tournament game. Then Lucas had hit a jumper, a shot no one thought he could make, a similar rainbow from beyond the three-point line, and the Terps had exploded, ultimately catching and passing UMass with 15 minutes of perfection that ended in a stunning victory. Lucas' shot quickly became the stuff of legend.
Now there is another.
Just as it did 11 months ago, his three-pointer was the beginning of a Maryland rally that, well, that had to be seen to be believed. Over the next 12 minutes, the Terps outscored the Tar Heels 33-10. The nation's top-ranked team was reduced to flailing shots and grabby defense. Cole Field House was blowing apart.
This was UMass II.
Johnny Rhodes followed Lucas' shot with a three-pointer from the wing. Then, after North Carolina's Jerry Stackhouse scored in the lane, Rhodes followed with another three-pointer and a three-point play on a drive in the lane. Suddenly,
the lead was down to one.
When Rodney Elliott found Rhodes inside for a layup, the Terps )) had the lead for the first time since early in the game, 37-36. There was 1:46 left in the first half. The Terps never trailed again.
At the end of the night, the No. 1 team had lost by 13 points and Terps fans were mobbing the court, celebrating what some Maryland observers believed was the biggest home victory in two decades.
Who was going to argue? Certainly, the scene at Cole was unlike anything anyone had seen in years. The students were in their seats five hours before tip-off, most having camped out overnight earlier in the week for as long as 24 hours. They spent the time studying, eating and watching television. The high point? When freshman guard Sarunas Jasikevicius dropped by at 2 in the morning to thank them.
At tip-off there were nine NBA scouts along press row to watch a game that included three certain NBA lottery picks in Joe Smith, Rasheed Wallace and Jerry Stackhouse, and possibly two other first-rounders in Rhodes and Donald Williams.
That the Terps were too psyched up was obvious early. And it started with their coach. When Smith was called for a charging foul on Wallace in the first three minutes, Gary Williams practically pulled a muscle screaming at the officials. He was given a technical. It was symbolic. The Terps were shooting air balls and committing turnovers. They were too high.
Then Lucas hit his jumper, and everything changed.
On a night when Joe Smith was limited by a sagging Carolina defense, Rhodes picked up the team and carried it with an enormously broad-shouldered performance. After hitting the three-pointer that pulled the Terps back into the game late in the first half, he was all over the court throughout the second half, hitting jumpers, finding the open man, grabbing rebounds, directing the offense.
The scouts came to the game talking about Wallace and Smith and Stackhouse, but they left talking about Rhodes, you can be sure of that. For a player who is maybe the most improved player in the ACC, it was a night when he stepped up to another level.
Rhodes wasn't the only Terp who shone throughout the second half, though. Duane Simpkins bounced back from a horrible, turnover-ridden start to hit a half-dozen big shots in the second half. Booth came back from foul trouble to play a major factor inside. Smith never forced a shot, kept playing hard, hit his share of post-up shots and completely dominated the backboards.
It was a complete team performance.
Now no one could accuse the Terps of failing to beat a higher-ranked team. This wasn't the least bit lucky. It was a sound beating, a victory by one team that was clearly better than the other on this night.
It started with one jumper.