COLLEGE PARK - - I'm not going to tell you this is a great Maryland basketball team we're seeing now.

I'm not going to say the Terps' 14-5 record and 4-1 start in the Atlantic Coast Conference has me thinking they'll win the conference and go deep in the NCAA tournament.

Sure, I like to overreact as much as the next blowhard columnist.

I like to watch three or four games in January and sit down at the keyboard and bang out 750 words with my fat little fingers about why you can count on seeing this or that team playing for the national championship in April.

But it's too early for that right now - even for me.

What I can say about the Terps is this: They sure are fun to watch, especially when they play the way they did in Tuesday night's 81-59 rout of Miami before a sellout crowd at Comcast Center.

This is how decisive the win over the Hurricanes was: Gary Williams didn't blow a gasket even once - at least not that I saw.

Instead of screaming and stomping and sweating through his Armani suit as he usually does, the Terps coach looked positively serene most of the night.

OK, I say "positively serene." But not in the sense of, you know, a Buddhist monk.

I just mean he didn't look like he was going to explode any second, which is his normal look when he's coaching.

As to exactly why the Terps are playing so well right now, it's really not that complicated: They're playing smothering defense, which gets their transition game going. And they're also shooting way better than they have in years.

"We're really focused on defense," Williams said after Tuesday's game. "We're trying to believe our defense is responsible for our ability to run our offense and get good shots, because I think the aggressiveness on the defensive end of the court filters into the offensive part of the game."

OK, maybe you're rolling your eyes right now.

And maybe you're thinking: Hey, let's not get carried away here. They beat up on a lousy Miami team, not Duke.

Fair enough.

But the way the Terps' defense gets after people, with relentless pressure and half-court traps and help underneath, you can see it frustrating good teams and bad teams alike the rest of the way.

And get this: The guy Williams credits for much of this new energy on "D" is the guy Maryland fans love to rip for being such a loose cannon, Greivis Vasquez.

Vasquez had another terrific game offensively against Miami. He scored 16 points to climb to sixth on the Terps' all-time list. And he had nine assists; he ranks ninth in the country in assists per game (6.1).

But when he wasn't dishing no-look passes and dropping rainbow 3s on Miami and breaking out that annoying shimmy dance to celebrate, Vasquez was also playing some hellacious defense.

"I think he's committed to being a very good defensive player," Williams said. "And those things are contagious when you have veterans like Landon Milbourne and Eric Hayes and Greivis Vasquez [who] are really, on every possession, doing whatever they can do defensively."

"That's one of the reasons I came back to school," said Vasquez, who flirted with the NBA draft last year before common sense prevailed. "People criticize my defense. But I'm confident enough that I can stop anybody in this league - or anybody's league."

Of course, all the "D" in the world won't help if a team can't put the ball in the basket. And the Terps are having no problems with that right now.

They took more than twice as many first-half shots (35-16) as Miami, mainly because of all the turnovers (14) they created with their "D."

And when they weren't scoring in transition, they were shooting lights-out, led by Milbourne's 16 points (7-for-10 from the field) and Vasquez's 16 (5-for-11).

All this has the Terps playing with incredible confidence as they get ready to face Clemson on Sunday at Littlejohn Coliseum.

But maybe Maryland fans should listen to Williams before breaking out the champagne and party hats.

After the Miami game, Williams was asked how good his team could be.

"I can't tell. It's too early," he said quickly. "We have to go on the road now for two games. I just want to keep playing well and not have the big letdowns.

"You're going to lose games. Everyone's losing games. But you have to maintain the way we're playing."

That won't be easy. It's hard to play at that level, game in and game out.

So maybe you don't worry about that if you're a Terps fan. You don't worry about where they finish in the conference or what they do in March or anything else.

Right now, they're a fun team to watch. And that should count for something.

Listen to Kevin Cowherd on Tuesdays from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. with Jerry Coleman on Fox 1370 AM Sports.

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