Mar 2, 2013; Winston Salem, NC, USA; Wake Forest Demon Deacons forward Tyler Cavanaugh (34) has his shot blocked by Maryland Terrapins guard/forward Dez Wells (32) during the first half at Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports

The Teams: Maryland Terrapins (20-9, 8-8 ACC) vs. North Carolina Tar Heels (21-8, 11-5 ACC)

The Time: 7 PM EST

The Location: Comcast Center, College Park, Maryland.

TV/Radio: ESPN, ESPN3, 105.7

The Backstory: The Maryland Terrapins hope to continue to keep their slim chances of making the NCAA tournament alive when they host the North Carolina Tar Heels Wednesday night. The Terrapins are fresh off a rare 67-57 road victory over Wake Forest that couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. Dez Wells, playing in front of his home state crowd, had a near-perfect game with 23 points on 11-of-12 shooting. Wells was the catalyst that surged the Terrapins to victory, and in doing so ensured that their game against North Carolina meant something.

Meanwhile, the Tar Heels are a team doing their own fair share of surging, having been winners in their last five outings. During that stretch, they have toppled Virginia, Florida State, and in-state rival North Carolina State. To suggest that they have a lot of momentum going into this game would be understating things. Reggie Bullock has been averaging 18 points on over 50% shooting over that stretch, including two outings where he has scored 20 or more points. James Michael McAdoo has done the same, scoring 21 points against Florida State.

The two teams faced one another earlier in the season in Chapel Hill, with North Carolina thoroughly drubbing Maryland 62-52. Since that game, UNC has won 9 of their next 12 games, while the Terrapins have gone 6-5 over 11 games. During the previous game, Reggie Bullock caught fire in the first half and scored 20 points in the first half, almost all of those coming on three pointers. To win this game, the Terrapins are going to have to limit his and the rest of the Tar Heels damage from deep.

Keys to the game/Storylines:

1.) Redemption Song

The Maryland Terrapins are a team that thrives on redemption. They lost their first bout against Duke, but then returned serve with an upset when they got the team at home. They probably should have beaten Florida State on the road after losing at home. Needless to say, redemption is going to be on their mind against a team that thoroughly embarrassed them in Chapel Hill earlier in the season.

In order to do that, the Terrapins are really, really, really going to have to limit the amount of turnovers they commit. One of the biggest factors in their loss to North Carolina was the fact that the Tar Heels took advantage of 21 Terrapin turnovers. Maryland can win games when they turn it over that much, but it requires dominating every other facet of the game. If they want to keep it close, my suggestion is that they limit the amount of turnovers they get to 14 or fewer.

2.) Muck the whole game up

How did the Maryland Terrapins take it to Duke? They mucked the game up so much that the Blue Devils weren’t able to get comfortable the entire game. It’s what Gary Williams was so good at convincing his team to do, and why so many upsets occur at Comcast. Maryland took 34 free throws against Duke, and got plenty of players in to foul trouble, which completely changes their mentality. Even with the turnover issue rearing its head, the Terrapins were still in the game because they attacked the basket at will.

Against North Carolina, the Terrapins have to do the same thing. They need to get North Carolina’s big men in trouble and proceed to dominate the boards once they do that. That will require Alex Len to be incredibly aggressive against James Michael McAdoo or whomever guards him, and for Dez Wells to get swing man Bullock into a bit of foul trouble. Either way, the concerted effort from the entire team to muck the game up by guarding the perimeter and funneling players inside against Len needs to happen tonight more than ever.

Prediction: Terps pull of a minor upset, and keep their dreams of dancing alive.

Feb 27, 2013; Atlanta, GA, USA; Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets guard/forward Jason Morris (14) fouls Maryland Terrapins center Alex Len (25) in the first half at McCamish Pavilion. Mandatory Credit: Daniel Shirey-USA TODAY Sports

From here on out, the Terrapins are more than likely going to have to rely on luck more than anything else to have a chance at the tournament. The Maryland Terrapins dropped a must-win game on the road against Georgia Tech 79-68 and in doing so all but sealed their fate as a team that won’t be making the tournament.

A road game against Georgia Tech is one that most tournament teams win. Even bubble teams are more than likely to pick up a win against a team that had gone 4-10 in the ACC up until the win against Maryland. 14-12 with a grand total of zero big victories? That’s cake. So what did the Maryland Terrapins do? They were entirely dismantled as a unit, and looked every bit the part of a team that will not be making the tournament.

Too many chinks in the armor, too many losses, too many problems to count. Call it whatever you want: the Terrapins play against Georgia Tech essentially cast away any uncertainty a tournament committee would have in leaving Maryland out of the Big Dance. I mean realistically, why would anyone want to put in a team that can’t put together winning streaks, that can’t perform on the road, and is more than likely to turn the ball over on 50% of their possessions than shoot 50% from the floor because they don’t have a point guard? They wouldn’t, and Georgia Tech was the summation of all those concerns.

The Terrapins have had numerous issues all season, and one gigantic issue that reared its head against Georgia Tech was the Terrapins complete inability to guard the perimeter. Georgia Tech is one of the worst teams in the ACC from deep; coming into the game, they hit 31% of their three pointers as a team. These players weren’t big-time sharp shooters, they were streaky guards who tended to miss a lot more than they made. Brandon Reed, a guy who hit 29% of his threes last season, went a perfect 3-of-3 from long range. He was aided by freshman Marcus Georges-Hunt, who also chipped in two 3-pointers of his own. Yes, they only hit six, but they had the opportunity to hit plenty more. There were, at times, absolutely no one guarding their players on the perimeter. That’s player effort and coaching scheme. Even if they miss, getting the amount of open looks that the Yellow Jackets did all game is symptomatic of a team with no answers. It opens up down low once a few go in, and that’s what Georgia Tech took advantage of.

Of course, six three pointers isn’t a big deal for some teams. Responding with three or four of your own lessens the impact those have on the game. Unfortunately, Maryland happens to field about five scorers who are cut from the “streaky” gib. It’s why you’ll see Jake Layman hosting a shooting gallery of awfulness on the court; two of his eight three point misses barely hit the rim, another two were about five seconds into the shot clock, and none of them were particularly close. That’s Jake Layman at his worst, which is the product that Maryland gifted to Georgia Tech. He looked inexperienced, and hurt the team with his chucking, “heat check” attitude. When he hits his first few shots, Layman is an incredibly tough matchup. When he doesn’t? He probably shouldn’t be playing in the game.

But the same could be said about Seth Allen, whose 2-of-6 shooting display from deep caused Mark Turgeon’s head to spontaneously combust on the court. Allen has a quick trigger finger, yes, but he also opts out of easier looks to attack the basket and try to force something ugly inside. He did it numerous times, and was another freshman who just looked out of sorts on the court. There may have been comparisons between he and Terrell Stoglin a week ago, but say one thing about Stoglin: he wouldn’t have passed up the easy looks from deep that Allen got. The Terrapins did that with much aplomb, and Georgia Tech had no problem funneling their guards into the paint and contesting every attempt.

The Terrapins were also yet again outrebounded (31-27 to be exact), but they were severely beaten in the paint as well, and a lot of that was due to how horrible James Padgett looked. He isn’t Dwight Howard at cleaning up the boards, but he typically holds his own. Tonight, however, freshman Robert Carter Jr. tossed him around the court like a rag doll. Padgett got torched in every way you can imagine; off the dribble, with Carter’s back to the basket, face up. You name it, Carter Jr. did it against Padgett. I hate to call a player out like that, especially one like Padgett who plays hard every time he is on the court, but Mark Turgeon should have recognized early on that some type of defensive change needed to be made when Padgett was being made to look like a fool. He didn’t, and Carter Jr. had no problem scoring in transition, in a half court set, didn’t matter. He got every look he wanted.

(Note: when a team turns the ball over like the Terrapins, they can’t afford to get outrebounded any night).

It’s a credit to Georgia Tech for getting six blocks using that same strategy mentioned earlier, and pressing Nick Faust and the other guards early and often in order to force turnovers (of which he had six of the team’s 14). Georgia Tech answered everything the Terrapins threw at them, and matched them point for point the entire game. Daniel Miller got Alex Len and other bigs in foul trouble by being aggressive, and got to line 12 times tonight (he finished with 16 points and 9 rebounds). In fact, Georgia Tech landed 20 points from the charity stripe because of how easily they were able to attack the paint. The Terrapins were gashed and slashed repeatedly. Tech did everything they were supposed to do in order to win a game, while the Terrapins didn’t.

It’s a known fact that the Terrapins aren’t a good road team, so it boggles my mind why this loss is considered a surprise by any means. Maryland has guards who are athletic enough to slow the game down and get some potential foul shots to supplant their poor shooting from deep, but that didn’t happen. Instead, they played like a young team who felt certain that their shots would eventually go in, and by the time they realized they wouldn’t, the game was already out of hand. It’s the difference between crafty, veteran teams that make the tournament, and youthful, streaky teams that usually don’t. It gets better with time, but this year might not be when things get better.

What does this loss mean? Well, it more than likely means that the Terrapins won’t be in the tournament unless the win literally every game they play from here on out. Wins against Virginia and North Carolina would definitively make things interesting, but this loss to Georgia Tech looks nasty among any good wins. It’s too late in the season for a team like Maryland to suffer a loss like that, and yet they did. That game against Wake Forest doesn’t even look like an easy W anymore, and that game at Virginia to finish the season? Ugh.

As I said before, Maryland is going to have to get a lot of luck going their direction to get a spot in the tournament, which is what matters the most right now. The bad news is that the Terrapins really don’t have any time left to get lucky.

Feb 7, 2013; Blacksburg, VA, USA; Maryland Terrapins center Alex Len (25) has the ball knock away by Virginia Tech Hokies forward C.J. Barksdale (42) during the second half at Cassell Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Peter Casey-USA TODAY Sports

If it isn’t one thing with this Maryland Terrapins basketball team, it is another.

The Terrapins lost a must-win game at home against the Virginia Cavaliers on Sunday 80-69, and in doing so cast a major cloud of uncertainty on their NCAA Tournament hopes. The script has been the same all year; win or lose, the Terrapins will always showcase one or two of their damning flaws. Be it turnovers, outside shooting, or a failure to stop outside shooting, Maryland always does something to give you pause.

Against Virginia, it was surprisingly not the turnovers that were the main issue that caused Maryland to lose. Instead, it was their propensity to let one player get hot and absolutely destroy them for a half. With Florida State, it was Okaro White; against North Carolina it was Reggie Bullock; Duke let loose Rasheed Sulaimon. Finally against Virginia, it was Joe Harris and his 22 points on 7-of-8 shooting (3-of-4 from deep.)

Here is the part of the story where I get on Mark Turgeon. You’re facing a player in Joe Harris who is shooting a Steve Kerr-like 47% from long range on the year, and who is very clearly the Cavaliers go-to scorer. Let him get hot, and he is going to annihilate your team from deep. Now again, you know from previous experience that playing man-to-man against teams that are good from three point range ends with absolutely dreadful results (Duke, North Carolina). You also know going into the game that your players have a very hard time fighting through screens to get to those open shooters.

So what does Turgeon do? He plays man-to-man, and the Cavaliers shoot 58% from deep and hit 11 three pointers. I understand the complexities in preparing a defensive game plan, and Turgeon’s propensity to stick with the script no matter what is happening during the game. What I don’t understand is how he consistently fails to adjust midgame in order to implement something of a different strategy to stop these issues against good three point shooting teams.

As my colleague put it, “You want him to run a gimmicky 3-2?” Well, kind of. Playing mano e mano has gotten the Terrapins throttled during similar games. You would think that, going into this game knowing that Virginny has some very good shooters, they would have had something drawn up to prevent this sort of implosion. Turgeon didn’t have that, and his inability to adjust in-game (save for using the press to stop the bleeding late in the second half) caused him to get out-coached by Tony Bennett.

That is the honest truth. I’m not blaming Turgeon for everything, but to absolve him of at least a large portion of the guilt is unfair to the players. Turgeon has done a lot of things correctly, but one thing he has failed to do is readjust midgame so the Terrapins don’t get behind by 10, 11, even 15 points. When the game plan isn’t being executed well, it seems as if nothing at all goes well for the majority of the game. To allow a team to shoot as well as Virginia did means there was a fundamental issue with the strategy going into this game.

This is as far as I am going to get onto Mark Turgeon, because the players were also at fault here. Despite a big size advantage, the Terrapins were outrebounded for the first time all season long. The Terrapins had 10 offensive rebounds (27 overall) to Virginia’s 31, and being outrebounded is typically an effort issue. The players showed little to no sense of urgency throughout the game, even when the lead was getting larger by the second. Virginia didn’t have Dennis Rodman on their team, and Maryland should have had the boards advantage during this game.

Another thing that will go overlooked while trying to search for answers is the free throw shooting. Virginia made 17 free throws of their 23 attempts, whereas Maryland shot a meager 55% on 10-of-18 attempts. The only player who shot really badly from the line was Dez Wells, who hit 1-of-4. But Logan Aronhalt had a miss, Len had a miss, Cleare had a miss, and Padgett missed his only attempt. I’m not saying the Terrapins need to shoot 100% from the stripe, but it makes the game a helluva lot easier when those misses turn into makes. Even hitting three more turns this game into a more competitive one.

One of the more frustrating facets of this game was the Terrapins inability to fight through screens and poor timing on entry passes. Every guard on the floor struggled to get around a simple screen and get to their perimeter shooters. The only person who was acceptably doing it was Pe’Shon Howard. Everyone else just didn’t look like they were displaying the proper aggressiveness and will to get a hand in these guys faces.

And the entry passes were just brutal, as is tradition. The Virginia big men weren’t even playing that incredible of defense against Len and Mitchell. Instead, the Terps guards just never got them the ball at the right times. Numerous times, Len had footing in the paint, but he only got a (sloppy) entry pass after about five seconds of standing around. He has to get those passes earlier, and had he gotten them earlier Virginia wouldn’t have been able to hone in on him as quickly.

The only players on this team who can successfully complete a properly timed entry pass are Aronhalt and Layman, which really makes no sense at all. There are no point guards on the roster, but these are fundamental things that should never be an issue. Until the Terrapins can time those passes correctly, they will never be able to take real advantage of their size and power down low.

Of course, no one needs to bring up what this loss means for the Maryland Terrapins. This was as close to a must-win as this season is going to get, and they lost. Now there really aren’t too many other opportunities for a key victory. They get Duke at home, North Carolina at home, and Virginia on the road. None of those games look particularly winnable at the moment, but then anything can happen.

Maryland is going to need at least four wins in their final seven games (including a key victory and an ACC Tournament win) in order to even be in the conversation. The road that they will travel is riddled with uncertainty, and that is never a good thing for a team with this many issues.

Jan 26, 2013; Durham, NC, USA; Maryland Terrapins head coach Mark Turgeon on the sidelines against the Duke Blue Devils during the second half at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark Dolejs-USA TODAY Sports

Maybe it was after the North Carolina loss that I started realistically entertaining the idea that the Terrapins wouldn’t make the tournament. But then we pulled off the upset against North Carolina State in the previous game, so I pushed those inner demons deep down inside of me. After all, young teams go through ups and downs, and UNC is a hostile environment, right?

After the Duke loss, I kind of started getting a little wary of the team. Tournament teams do get blown out on occasion, especially by then-No. 1 teams like Duke on the road. I mean, sure they gave up a little over halfway through the game, but then that stuff happens to young teams, right? Right, Michael? Right, Michael. We’re still a tournament team…I think.

The second loss to Florida State though? Well let’s just say the inner demons aren’t so inner anymore. That wasn’t a soul-crushing loss simply because it was one that ended in the final seconds. No, teams can recover from losses like that and they do it all the time. You could even make the case that losses like are the best losses, because at least teams can continue on with the attitude that “We should have won that game if it weren’t for one final mistake!” You don’t lose your swagger that easily.

What is a bit more unnerving about the whole situation is that there’s just not a whole ton of basketball left to play in order to bolster that tournament resume. I mean, look at the remainder of the schedule. Wake Forest twice, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, and Boston College each once. Four of those games are on the road, and we all know how the Terrapins are on the road. Even if we assume the Terrapins win every single one of those games and go 5-0, it just doesn’t do a lot for the team outside of improving their record.

Outside of those games? UVA (2x), Duke, and North Carolina. At this point, you really have to question the Terrapins ability in each of those games. Duke and North Carolina are at home, but after the performances put on by the Terrapins in the first round against those two, do you really think it’s feasible they will win those games? The Terrapins struggle with three-point shooting, perimeter ball-movement teams, and that’s well documented.

Don’t even get me started on Virginia, who I am more than concerned about. Before upsetting NC State this past game, they were running Florida State, Boston College, and Wake Forest out of the gym in blowout wins. Against similar opponents, Maryland just hasn’t done nearly the same thing. The two teams are similar, but not by that much. Virginia just looks like the better team at this point. They rebound well and shoot well enough to make the Terrapins hurt.

Using a simple, realistic, and honest approach to the remainder of the schedule gives the Terrapins a .500 record in the ACC, and that just may not be enough to convince a committee of our eligibility for the tournament. Right now the Terps are a *gulp* “fringe team.” Any time your team gets labeled in that manner, it means things are almost out of your control at this point. Save for winning out, the Terrapins have an uphill climb.

While they may not be a terrible team, they certainly aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. Their ability to turn the ball over 18 times a game and lose by only two points baffles all standard basketball logic. Their rebounding ability is phenomenal and keeps them in games, and they actually used to be an effective passing team. They have a 7’1 stud in Alex Len and a slasher who is unstoppable at times in Dez Wells, yet they struggle to score. None of the team makes sense, and their identity is unknown. A confused selection committee is a bad thing for the Terrapins, but that’s what they are right now.

I love Maryland as much as the next guy, but this team is going to have to do something to impress the fans now. Because right now what they are doing is summarily unimpressive. Until they get another big win, I will remain wary of this team in a big-game environment.

The scariest part is that fan opinion doesn’t even matter come Selection Sunday. We’re easily impressed. Unfortunately the committee might not feel the same.