Three straight wins, two of which have been on the road, have the Maryland Terrapins (14-7, 4-3 Atlantic Coast Conference) back in NCAA Tournament discussion. Their most recent win was an impressive performance in Atlanta against Georgia Tech, a place they have struggled in from time to time.
Well, now they have the No. 5 Duke Blue Devils (19-2, 6-1) coming to town. The Terps, although extremely young, had a shot to beat Duke at Cameron Indoor last month, but missed too many foul shots and fell short. Since then, Duke has lost twice to unranked teams on the road, at Florida State and at St. John’s this past Sunday.
The Blue Devils haven’t been as dominant as they appeared to be with Kyrie Irving earlier in the season. Also, they’ve been missing more than their share of three pointers, which is uncharacteristic for them. If Maryland stops the threes from raining down, they will have a chance to significantly improve their postseason berth chances.
Maryland’s biggest issue will be scoring. Their defense has been pretty good most of the season. If the offense goes through sophomore Jordan Williams, the Terps will have a good chance to pull off an upset. Williams will dominate the Plumlee brothers inside and force them collect fouls all game.
An area on offense Maryland must improve against Duke is their three-point shooting. Against Georgia Tech Sunday evening, the Terps didn’t hit one three pointer which snapped a lengthy 407 game streak.
This could be a make-or-break game for Maryland because they don’t face another ranked team for quite a while.
