Today in Men's Basketball History: March 30
3/30/2020 8:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
(NCAA Final Four, Atlanta)
- Superstar Juan Dixon matched his career-high with 33 points to lead the Terrapins to their first appearance in the NCAA Championship game in their history.
- Chris Wilcox got the better of a key matchup against All-American Drew Gooden, scoring 18 points while keeping Gooden largely in check.
- Maryland fell behind early in the game, 13-2, but took its first lead on a pull-up 3-pointer by Dixon with seven minutes left in the half.
- The Terps built an 83-63 lead, before the Jayhawks staged a massive comeback and trailed by four points with just 19 seconds left. Kansas was issued a technical, however, when one of its players then called a timeout the team did not have.
- Lonny Baxter battled foul trouble throughout the game, picking up two fouls in the first three minutes of the first half and only playing 14 total.
- The Jayhawks were stacked with talent, including six players who would go on to play in the NBA: Kirk Hinrich, Drew Gooden, Nick Collison, Wayne Simien, Aaron Miles and Keith Langford
- Quotable: "I don't think I'll ever forget last year until we win a national championship." - Lonny Baxter
Terrapins, large and small, look every inch a champion
Published: March 31, 2002
ATLANTA - The Maryland Terrapins weren't just good Saturday night in their 97-88 victory over Kansas that took them to Monday night's national championship game against Indiana. The Terrapins were heart- skippingly, inspirationally wonderful. They were so tough, so resourceful, so beautifully confident and interdependent, that their performance on this evening will probably be the high-water mark of Maryland basketball for many years.
When the Terrapins were down by double digits early, they fought back. When they were without center Lonny Baxter, because of foul trouble, they turned to Chris Wilcox and Tahj Holden and found heroes. When they had Kansas on the ropes late in the first half and deep into the second, Juan Dixon (33 points) fired jumper after jumper into the Jayhawks' hearts, building a 20-point lead.
Perhaps sweetest for Maryland fans who have been disappointed by so many fine teams over the years, often in the tightest pressure situations, the Terrapins withstood a patented cyclone of a comeback by Kansas. The Jayhawks cut their deficit to five points with 2 minutes 3 seconds to play and four points with 19 seconds left.
When Maryland might have cracked, as it did last year in this exact same game -- blowing the biggest lead in Final Four history (22 points) to Duke -- the Terrapins summoned themselves and iced the game with plausible, though hardly perfect poise.
As a final delicious twist, it was Kansas, coached by Roy Williams, that too-sweet-by-half Dean Smith disciple, which called a timeout that it didn't have in the final minutes to give Maryland extra free throw breathing room.
In a no-class final twist, Kansas even fouled with one-tenth of a second left, trailing by seven points, a play so petty even the Tar Heels might not stoop to it. Don't let the other team have its final- second moment of glee at beating you -- even if they've earned it.
"I don't think we'll forget last year until we win a national championship," said Baxter, who scored only four points in 14 minutes because he committed two fouls in the games first three minutes, then fouled again just a minute into the second half."
Since Maryland began playing a full schedule of games in 1911, no Terrapins team has ever risen to such heights to play for such a prize. Dixon, with his torrent of jumpers, and Wilcox, with his almost complete domination of Kansas center Drew Gooden, will get the biggest headlines. By the time the game had swung Maryland's way for good, with the Terps leading 83-63 with six minutes left, Wilcox had 18 points and Gooden had just six.
Even if the Terrapins beat Indiana for the national title, as they are favored to do, it's doubtful they will distinguish themselves in basketball lore to any higher degree than they did in this colossal whipping of mighty Kansas. They had to win this game over and over because Kansas kept coming back -- never close enough to have a square shot at winning, but just enough to test Maryland.
"Our aggressive, running style helps us get big leads, but it works against us holding [onto] them," said Maryland Coach Gary Williams. "Nobody beats Kansas by 20. It's not going to happen."
Yet Maryland was clearly the better team. Kansas's Williams, who can really get on your nerves if you don't enjoy saccharine, said, "We couldn't quite get over the hump."
The look of worry, almost of shock, began to grow in the faces of the Jayhawks long before they began to lose. Long before they began to lose badly. Even when Kansas was still ahead, the Jayhawks could feel that Maryland was the clearly better team on this night. And perhaps any night with such stakes on the table.
This was the night when that silly slogan -- "Fear the Turtle" -- took on real meaning. Basketball teams feel each other's strengths and flaws as a palpable physical presence on the court. Which guard can "take" the other off the dribble any time he wants? Which center has the other's number, senses his timing, can jump higher, can almost block his shot at will? Which team's pressure unnerves the other? Until you actually play each other, you never quite know. All the film study in the world doesn't tell as much truth as a few minutes head-to-head.
What Kansas found out fast was that its most celebrated star, the 6-foot-10 Gooden, had met his match, at least for this night, in Maryland's 6-10 sophomore Wilcox, a rising star who might eventually achieve an even higher zenith.
Twice in the first three minutes, and three times in the first half, Gooden used his fakes, spun to shoot, leaped to a height far above the rim and shot. Usually, when he does that, he's all alone. But all three times Wilcox rose with him, actually rose above him, and blocked his shot. Two were clean precise deflections. But another was a full in-your-face swat-it-off-the-playground-fence of a block.
Imagine Patrick Ewing or Bill Walton arriving at a national semifinal and suddenly realizing that the other team's third or fourth best player might embarrass him.
After Wilcox established himself inside, Dixon took over outside. Roy Williams is so proud of his back court that he starts three guards -- and labels them as such in his starting lineup. He likes the guys he brings off his bench, too. All fast, all pressure defenders and most long-range shooters. Yet Dixon diced them all into little pieces.
All season critics have been trying to figure out what makes him so special, why no one seemed to prevent him from going where he pleases and getting his work done. Dixon is not merely quicker than his peers, but much quicker. His fakes are faster, his changes of direction more sudden.
In other words, he disappears.
Then reappears for an open jump shot or a trip down the lane at high altitude. Without the aggravation of a defender in the vicinity.
Dixon, and the general excellence of the Maryland back court, including his running mates Steve Blake and Drew Nicholas, was the strategic difference between the teams. Kansas's guards eat everybody's lunch. Maryland ate theirs.
To win national championships, especially in a tournament with a 65-team field, every team -- even one playing as well as Maryland is right now -- welcomes help and prays for luck. You need somebody else to beat the teams that you have trouble handling so you never even have to meet them with your season at stake.
This year, Maryland lost to Oklahoma, Duke, North Carolina State and Arizona. By the time the Terrapins took the floor Saturday night against Kansas, they knew that all four of those teams were gone.
And they could thank the Indiana Hoosiers, the team that was already in the final, for most of the good work on their behalf. The unheralded fifth seed not only beat Duke eight days ago but also shocked Oklahoma, 73-64, in Saturday night's first game.
Maryland could hardly ask for more. They had to do the hard lifting against Kansas by themselves. Would they be up to it?
You bet.
