You could be the most ardent Maryland supporter or the fiercest Gary Williams defender or have the longest, most bitter memories of the darkness of the post-Len Bias days.
But now, even you all have to ask the same question asked by the frustrated fans with the shortest memories or the most outrageous post-championship expectations:
Is this all there is?
In the sixth season since the Terps reached the mountaintop, is this program doomed every year to scrap and scuffle just to get to the foot of the mountain base?
That's where the Terps are, again. Not even a week ago, the consensus among college basketball observers was that Maryland was in the NCAA tournament. With one minor caveat - as long as the Terps won the games down the stretch that they were supposed to win and kept playing the way they had for the past month.
Now, honestly, what made anyone who has followed this team lately think any of that was going to happen? Of course, the Terps lost their next two games. Today, with three regular-season games left, Maryland is a 50-50 bet to make a second straight Big Dance appearance or a third National Invitation Tournament trip in four years.
The Terps have had a signature win to boast of and to boost their chances, again. They've had inexplicable losses at home and to teams that seem eminently beatable, again. They've had a hot streak that countered a cold streak, then a cold streak to dilute a hot streak, again.
With the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament approaching, they have their postseason berth in their hands, but have regrets about not having sealed the deal already. Again.
Five straight years, it has been the same story, ever since they followed up the 2002 title - and the second straight Final Four trip - by making the Sweet 16 in 2003.
Freshman classes have come in, senior classes have gone out. The players and the team have overachieved and underachieved in the same season, sometimes in the same week, occasionally in the same game. Good players have left confounding legacies - Greivis Vasquez, alternately the fans' favorite and whipping boy this season, is only the latest.
All of college basketball has been on a roller coaster over these years. Not even Duke is its annual sure thing. George Mason has reached a Final Four. One of the weekend's BracketBuster games went against the entire spirit and intent of the scheduling ploy, as two Top 25 teams from mid-major conferences faced off.
It might just be what the game is all about now - utterly unpredictable, rife with inconsistency, feeling the aftereffects of elite talent departing for the pros early and leaving the players with flaws great and small behind to fight for supremacy. Describes Maryland to a "T," doesn't it?
So consider that when you think about how exasperating the recent editions of the Terps are. Winning it all, we now know, did not turn them into North Carolina or Duke. You can say that about nearly all of their title brethren this decade - Syracuse, Michigan State, Connecticut, even back-to-back champ Florida. All in the same boat, this very season, in fact. Two of those programs have Hall of Fame coaches, too.
This season's edition of the Terps fits the bill perfectly. Seniors James Gist and Bambale Osby are sometimes dominant, sometimes invisible. The freshman class, the X-factor coming in, has been a nonfactor. After all that promise and hope in October, the freshmen now can't be trusted in games the Terps can't afford to lose. Williams made that clear Saturday in Miami, using them only when Gist got into serious foul trouble.
As it turns out, the Terps' fate rises and falls on the sophomores' backs. No way Williams intended that. But that's what he has. That's what the faithful have.
Once upon a time, Williams' teams weren't just a given to make the tournament, but they also took heat if they didn't reach the Sweet 16. Now, every Selection Sunday is an adventure, and parsing the Rating Percentage Index occupies nearly as much of the student section's time as creating obscene chants for the visitors.
It's time to acknowledge that this might very well be not the exception but the norm.
There's your answer to that question up above: Is this all there is?
Now, try to answer this one: Are you OK with it?
david.steele@baltsun.com
Listen to David Steele on Tuesdays at 9 a.m. on WNST (1570 AM).