Terps Sports

Anyone who lived through our three agonizing losses to Duke in 2001 and still wanted to chance our entire season to get revenge on them in the 2002 tourney is insane. Anything could have happened in such a game.

Our last pre-tourney game against Duke was a win, and we beat the most storied programs in SEC, Big East, Big 12, and Big Ten history in the damn tourney. We beat 5 of the 6 fucking blue bloods that season, and would have beat UCLA too if we'd played them.

We had nothing left to prove, and an agonizing loss against Duke in the final four again would have been pretty much the worst thing that could ever have happened to me.

I was at that game, and screaming my head off for the Hoosiers. When J Will hit the jumper and they called the foul, I just knew it would go to OT and Dook would win.

Then when he missed and they didn't call an over the back for Boozer, I thought Christiensen (screen cap above) had literally killed a ref.

M-M-Mike Davis made a brilliant halftime adjustment that night. LOL @ Dook.

Edit: Mike EMPLOYED a brilliant adjustment. Nice post fla.

I was like 13 but I was super relieved when Duke went out, I felt strongly that they were the only team who could beat us. When they lost I knew we had just won the title.

By the way, that UConn team was stacked. We got pretty unlucky having them as the 2 seed.

Yup. And this was the height of my belief in the Duke / ref / NCAA conspiracy theory. I was 100% sure they would not let Maryland win against Duke in the FF. I'm pretty sure I would've gone on a killing spree if we'd lost to them in back to back years.

I remember listening to Jason Williams miss the freethrow in the car with my Dad and we both went crazy.

me too.

When it became apparent that Indiana was going to the final game though, I changed my tune. I thought it was really cool how many storied programs we had to beat on our path. I doubt there's a similar run against such big programs.

Indiana is the crown jewel of programs.

I was more relieved than anything. I was excited after the Kansas game ( I felt that was the championship game).

obviously I meant after both games were over

I don't think I have ever hated a team more than I hated the Dook team of that era. Who cares about revenge? I wanted to see them lose every single game they played with the intensity of 1,000 suns. It was awesome. The way they lost, with JWill missing the free throw and crying, was awesome. I watched that game at a bar in NYC (shoutout to DaisyTerp), with both Dook and Indiana fans. There was massive smack talk going on the entire game. The arrogant Dook table was so frustrated, they left a scribbled message on a napkin and slapped it on the Indiana table on the way out. We all laughed them out of the bar. And the next day we drove up to Syracuse to watch the two games which guaranteed our 2nd straight Final Four, which eventually lead to our first National Championship. I don't think there was even 1% of my being that regretted that they lost that night

That game was the night before we played UConn in the regional final IIRC and any gladness I felt about Duke being out was sweated out of me in the Carrier Dome.

Almost positive we played Kentucky, then UConn. Duke loss was Thursday night. Kentucky was disjointed and lacked much of the drama and intensity of the UConn game

Yes we were in a Friday/Sunday regional. We played the late game both times (were the last team to qualify for the final 4).

Jubilation and relief. LOL at anyone who wanted another shot at Duke that season. Definitely felt relief after IU beat OU as well. Once that happened, and we beat Kansas of course, I knew the title was ours and that Monday night was just a formality. It was an odd feeling really. You're not used to feeling confident as a MD fan, but I was never worried for one second from the minute the KU game ended on -- it was our time (finally) and nothing was going to stop us.