COLLEGE PARK - It was the perfect opportunity for Gary Williams to tell Terrapin Nation to give it a rest.
Take a chill everyone. Let us - and you - rest on our collective, national championship laurel. This 64-49 win over Miami of Ohio could be what we are this season. Thirty-nine percent shooting. No budding NBA lottery pick.
There's no guarantee we'll get it together, what with all these talented freshmen finding their place and not with every returning player in a new role except Steve Blake.
It's not that we're not going to try, but let's just sit back and relax. Get used to this new Comcast Center together. Let's back down from expectations right here, right now.
But no. Absolutely no. It wasn't enough to stand at mid-court and watch the national championship banner unfurl last night and think about all the great players who fed through College Park and know that finally, a line of validation has been drawn, one that can never be erased.
"The people on that team and who were there, that never goes away," Williams said. "You'll always have people who debate whether a team was the best or whether this player was the best, but you can't debate whether we won a national championship. We won it. It doesn't matter where people pick us in the preseason."
It was a dramatic moment.
"I thought about Len Elmore, John Lucas, Steve Francis, Joe Smith. They all played on pretty good teams, but they never did win a championship for some reason," Williams said.
But all the glory of what the Terrapins did last April wasn't enough. Instead, Williams went 180 degrees the opposite way to demonstrate that this is a season with promise, too, that the Terrapins have a gleam in their eye, despite what people project.
First, he did it on the sideline by displaying wildly animated, midseason form. He did it with fist-shaking and temple-banging when Blake rushed a shot or when forward Tahj Holden drew a foul for so obviously wrapping up a smaller Miami player whom Holden should have blocked out.
In addition to the ranting and pacing and wild bouts of substitutions, Williams was even more pointed about expectations when he issued a deadline.
When should we expect to see the very good, if not great, team Williams sees melding from this new and reconfigured team?
"With my patience?" Williams said. "Tomorrow."
He meant it, apparently.
"He was just trying to get us concentrated on working hard. That's what all the yelling was," said center Ryan Randle, whose 15 points and inside presence were solid enough to show the Terps have at least a little of what got them so far last season.
"He knows a lot of people on this team are talented. He's got high hopes for us. He has plans for us we don't even know about yet," Randle said.
Which may be why Williams takes issue with a Sports Illustrated poll that ranks Maryland No. 28. "You mean our friends at Sports Illustrated?" Williams said with a sly smile. "I don't see how you can go from No. 1 down to 28. I guess we had a bad summer."
Williams draws a few yuks from the peanut gallery. The twinkle in his eye lets you know he means to be exactly that sarcastic, which is refreshing coming from a basketball coach who willingly brands himself a classic Type-A personality.
This November, Williams is not wound so tight that he won't spar and parry with the best of them. Is there pressure on Williams and Maryland to repeat? No, although Williams will concede nothing to anyone.
"I think we can be a great team. Everything is so even in college basketball," he said.
Is there pressure to defend the honor of a program he refuses to let take unnecessary hits? On this point, Williams is unabashedly taking on all comers. He goes well beyond the tired, old "We Get No Respect" refrain we're so used to hearing in the big-time sports world.
Instead, Williams is trumpeting an interesting notion about why Maryland must remain firmly implanted in the collective consciousness of college hoops nation.
He is calling it "attitude of program."
"We lost four starters. Three are in the NBA. But we're not the only ones. To be ranked behind Duke and Virginia? Politics play a part in this; how much you suck up to people. What kind of thinking goes into this? I think ranking us 13 or 15 is pretty accurate, losing who we lost, but one thing not taken into account is attitude of program. I think we're pretty tough right now."
Attitude of program, it should be noted, does not come just from winning a championship, although finally having what Duke and North Carolina and N.C. State already have does galvanize Maryland.
Williams, however, is exuding the confidence of a coach at the top of his powers, one who senses the past decade of winning and recruiting and putting together teams that do what need to be done has established a bedrock. Don't mess with it, he says. Even on a season-opening night that Williams said we should ignore.
By tomorrow, he said, the real Maryland comes to play. The talent is here. So, especially, is the will, the wherewithal, the attitude. He has the attention of his players. He should have ours, too.