In the middle of the first half last night, Juan Dixon, playing defense for Maryland, reached out with his long, lanky arms, as he has done hundreds of times before, and stole a pass he'd been watching from the very beginning, as he's done so many times before.
In a second, the ball was downcourt to Maryland's Chris Wilcox. Easy basket.
Coast to coast.
It's easy to get good in college basketball. It's much harder to stay good.
The preseason No. 1 this year was the Duke Blue Devils. They didn't win. The preseason No. 1 team last year was the Arizona Wildcats. They didn't win either.
This season, though, the preseason No. 2 team, the one many people gave the best shot to win its school's first title, was Maryland. It's hard to stay good in college basketball because being good means everybody has a scouting report on you the size of a textbook and once it reaches tournament time, every team you play has heard about your weaknesses, your strategies and your plays from television commentators, fans in the tenth row and uncles three times removed.
"This entire year, we played consistently," Dixon said last night. He's absolutely right. If the Terps didn't play consistently well, Goliath-slayers-to-be would have eaten them up.
And last night, with expectations on their shoulders that started piling up in October, the Terrapins beat Indiana, 64-52, and lived up to their preseason hype.
Coast to coast.
A man above the rest
Why did Maryland win?
Juan Dixon. Juan Dixon. Juan Dixon.
When Maryland's offense went dry in the middle of the second half and Indiana took a brief lead, it was Dixon who brought Maryland back. He had 18 points, five rebounds and five steals.
It was easy to forget in all the pregame hoopla that the players on the court last night are practically kids - college students like most of us. Lonny Baxter is 23. Dane Fife is 22. Jared Jeffries is only 20.
Early on it showed. Despite all the preparation and despite how many sportswriters lauded their composure and maturity, these players showed themselves to be less prepared and less composed than should be expected.
In the first five minutes, there were five turnovers, eight missed shots, and enough scrambles for loose balls that this game looked like a rugby match.
But leave it up to Dixon to remedy that situation and show everybody why was the best performer - game in and game out - in the 2002 tournament. In six minutes starting at 15:45, Dixon took four shots, all of them while being checked by Fife, the Big Ten's co-defensive player of the year.
Dixon made every shot. He had the touch. Maybe this was a mismatch after all.
It wasn't. Maryland may have had the big names - Dixon and Baxter - and the wow-did-you-just-see-that athlete in Chris Wilcox, but Indiana has the good basketball players, all playing the game the Hoosier way.
There's no better place for basketball than Indiana. I could take five non-athletes-to-be and rear them in Indiana, playing in the same gyms as Tom Coverdale and in front of the same basketball-obsessed crowds that cheered on Jeffries in high school, and by the time they turned 18, they could play college basketball well at all but its highest level.
With four minutes gone in the second half, the Hoosiers started to show how they reached the championship game. With hands in his face, Fife, Indiana's sharp-shooting senior, connected on two quick three-pointers. Bam. Bam. Lead down to four.
Then a few misses by Maryland. A three by Kyle Hornsby of Indiana. A tip-in by Jeff Newton. Bam. Bam. Tie game.
Forget underdog. The Hoosiers were playing like the favorites.
But, right away, Dixon scored five of the Terps' next seven points, and gave Maryland a lead they wouldn't give up. When nobody else could score, he did.
And in minutes, the Terrapins were champions. Coast to coast.
(Sam Le's column appears Tuesday in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at samle@virginia.edu)
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