COLUMBUS, Ohio – There are often several ways to dissect what one college basketball team has to do to beat another, particularly if they are close in terms of talent and pedigree.
In assessing what fourth-seeded Maryland needs to do to beat fifth-seeded West Virginia here at the Nationwide Center in Sunday's Round of 32 NCAA tournament game, it's pretty clear-cut.
The Terps have to be able to handle – and beat – the frenetic press of the Mountaineers.
Buffalo couldn't do it early in Friday's 68-62 loss, allowing West Virginia to quickly build a double-digit lead and dictate the pace of the game in its favor for much of the night.
The Mountaineers' press is reminiscent of the old "40 minutes of hell" defense Arkansas used in winning a national championship in 1994 and Virginia Commonwealth employed in getting to the Final Four in 2011.
It also might be better than both.
Buffalo coach Bobby Hurley said after the game that "it wasn't a shocker to me" that his team committed 17 turnovers against a team that forces on the average of around 20 a game.
"We don't face teams like this usually that are physical in trapping and are relentless in the way they play their defense," Hurley said. "Also we tried to simulate the speed and the pace that they would come at us. But it's hard to simulate that."
Consider this: Buffalo had five days to prepare for West Virginia's press.
Unless the Terps were looking past Valparaiso, their first-round opponent, Maryland has a day.
Among Maryland's previous opponents, the team that pressed the Terps the most was Oklahoma State in Stillwater on Dec. 21. Playing without senior guard Dez Wells, who was still out with a fractured wrist, the Terps committed 13 turnovers in a 73-64 win.
The Terps were pressed by Rutgers and Nebraska in Big Ten road games late in the season, and both teams were somewhat successful in chopping away at big leads for Maryland before Mark Turgeon's team was able to settle itself and come away with victories.
Hurley said after the game on Friday that his team eventually figured it out and cut its deficit to a point on a couple of occasions.
"As the game wore on, [his players] started to figure out how hard they needed to cut, how we needed to attack it," Hurley said.
Said freshman point guard Shannon Evans, "Coach got us on halftime. Told us to take care of the ball, be more strong with it. So we came out in the second half more composed and tried to play with m ore poise."
Hurley said that West Virginia's press is the "second most physical" his team had faced this season, right behind Kentucky. If the Terps managed to beat the Mountaineers and reach the Sweet 16 Thursday in Cleveland, Sunday's game could be good preparation for the top-seeded, top-ranked Wildcats.
"Kentucky is really physical as well, and they're twice as big at every position," Hurley said.