Drew Nicholas surely is not the only reason the Maryland Terrapins have failed to beat a team currently ranked, as the defending NCAA champions prepare to defend their first regular-season Atlantic Coast Conference title in 22 years.
But Nicholas, the 6-foot-4 senior shooting guard who was a valuable backup to Juan Dixon and point guard Steve Blake during the previous three seasons, pointed a finger at himself as he assessed Maryland's problems.
"When we need scoring, I'm one of the guys who has to get it done," Nicholas said. "We've had three big games so far, and I haven't shot the ball particularly well in each of them. That has to change."
The 24th-ranked Terps (4-3), who are in the midst of a nine-day break before playing UMBC on Monday, followed by their conference opener against visiting Georgia Tech on Dec. 29, are addressing various shortcomings - a lack of rebounding, crunch-time turnovers, not enough trips to the free-throw line, inconsistent half-court offense and interior toughness.
Then there is the scoring from the critical off-guard position, where Nicholas is a starter for the first time. Although he is leading the team with an average of 18.0 points, Nicholas has piled up most of those numbers against weaklings such as The Citadel and Duquesne, and has shown a troubling tendency to disappear in the bigger games.
In the losses to Indiana, Notre Dame and Florida, Nicholas has averaged just 12.0 points a game, has shot just 29.4 percent overall and from three-point range has converted only two of 16 attempts (12.5 percent).
In the second half of those losses, Nicholas has taken only 13 shots combined and made four. He lost a key inbounds pass late in regulation at Indiana, then lost the ball on a late fast break and later rushed an ill-advised shot in the Florida loss, slowing Maryland's comeback.
It appears that Nicholas is pressing - not unlike Blake, who has shot a combined 7-for-24 in the Terps' last two losses and has recorded so-so totals of 13 assists and 10 turnovers in the three defeats combined.
Replacing a player of Dixon's magnitude - he is the school's all-time leading scorer, a three-time first-team All-Atlantic Coast Conference performer, a first-team All-American and a Final Four Most Valuable Player who carried Maryland to its first national championship - is not an enviable task.
"Some people think you can just plug in players. It doesn't work that way," said Maryland coach Gary Williams.
Tar Heels going with youth
The North Carolina Tar Heels have plugged in a highly touted recruiting class to their lineup, and are determined to ride the backs of freshmen Raymond Felton, Sean May and Rashad McCants.
Already, that trio has helped the Carolina faithful put last year's 8-20 disaster behind them, although the No. 23 Tar Heels (5-2) have returned to earth lately after lopsided losses to Illinois and Kentucky.
Still, it's hard to ignore the impact the freshman trio is exerting on the program.
McCants, the 6-3 guard/forward, leads the ACC in scoring with 20.1 points a game and was shooting 64 percent going into last night's game against Vermont. May, the 6-11 center, was second on the team in scoring and leading the Tar Heels with 8.7 rebounds a game. Felton, the 6-foot point guard, was averaging 10.4 points and 6.5 assists.
Coincidentally, each of those freshmen has been slowed by injuries, which made the timing of Carolina's just-concluded, 12-day final exams break fortuitous.
May was struck on the bridge of the nose during a recent practice. McCants suffered a sprained ankle in the closing seconds of the Kentucky loss, and Felton was involved in a minor traffic accident last week in Chapel Hill, N.C. Each has had limited practice time.
"Besides that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?" Carolina coach Matt Doherty said to the Raleigh News-Observer. "We've tried to make do with what we have. We haven't had a lot of practice time, and the practice time we've had, guys have been out. It's been tough."
Hodge carrying Wolfpack
Other than Georgia Tech, the Wolfpack of North Carolina State improved more than any other program in the conference last year. Remember, N.C. State was the last team to beat Maryland before the Terps went on their national title march.
The Terps went down in the semifinals of the ACC tournament, thanks to a clutch, off-balance three-pointer by then-freshmen Julius Hodge.
With the loss of senior guards Anthony Grundy and Archie Miller, the 6-6 Hodge is needed more than ever, and he is playing notable stretches at both guard positions as well as small forward and is leading the Wolfpack with a 17.2-point average.
Hodge also is chipping in 5.8 rebounds a game, and there will probably be nights when N.C. State (5-1) needs him to sacrifice points for offensive rebounds. The Wolfpack doesn't have a true power player in the post, which showed in their first loss after feasting on weak competition early.
Gonzaga beat the Wolfpack in the Jimmy V Classic, 69-60, mainly because N.C. State was out-rebounded 61-35.