Monday, April 01, 2002
Battle of wills for title
Favored Terps ready for surprising Indiana
By Mike Lopresti
Gannett News Service
ATLANTA — Two very different teams are left to play one game tonight. The national championship of college basketball is down to this: the apple or the orange.
It'll be the Maryland team that was expected to be here.
Or the Indiana team that wasn't.
It'll be the Terrapins' mighty offense, keyed by guard Juan Dixon, the player of the tournament.
Or the Hoosiers' obstinate defense, exemplified by Dane Fife, who has troubled every guard he's faced this month.
It'll be a first title for Gary Williams, after 24 long years of making his coaching name.
Or for Mike Davis, after 19 long months of replacing Bob Knight.
It'll be the favorite. Maryland is a No.1 seed and a glittering 31-4. “(Monday) we could lose by 30,” Davis said. “The best team we'll face this year is Maryland.”
Or it'll be the underdog. Indiana (25-11) could become only the fifth unranked team to win the title, the first No.5 seed to do it, and could match Kansas of 1988 for the most losses ever by a champion.
“You don't look at their record,” Williams warned about Indiana. “You look at how they're playing.”
It'll be the metropolitan Maryland guys from the east.
Or the small-town Midwestern guys from Indiana.
It'll be the Terrapins, who have never been this far before.
Or the Hoosiers, whose championship game history includes a 5-0 record.
It'll be one determined team in the Georgia Dome. Or it will be the other. In that, there is little difference.
“We're kind of an underdog,” Indiana's Jarrad Odle said. “But then again, we know what is possible.”
They also know of the underdog-makes-good story of the movie Hoosiers, filmed in their own state. Odle has a DVD copy of it here, and Fife has seen it enough to be able to recite nearly every line.
But rather than cinema, tonight's game will likely turn on other things.
Dixon is averaging 27.4 points per game in the tournament, a gale-force wind blowing the bracket. Whenever the Terrapins have needed a big play in the past weeks, it has nearly always been Dixon
How to stop him?
That begins with Fife, whose target list the last few games has included Oklahoma's Hollis Price (1-for-11, six points), Kent State's Trevor Huffman (2-for-7, eight points) and Duke's Jason Williams (6-for-19, 15 points).
But tonight, Fife said, “is probably the toughest challenge we've faced in my life.”
There is also the matter of Indiana's 3-point shooting. The Hoosiers have hit 52.9 percent for the tournament and buried all six in the second half against Oklahoma.
The bench should play its part. Indiana had a 41-12 edge in reserve points over Oklahoma, Maryland 22-12 over Kansas.
It allowed both teams to survive subpar games by important players. Maryland beat Kansas despite only four points from East Regional MVP Lonny Baxter. Indiana whipped Oklahoma even with just eight points from Big Ten player of the year Jared Jeffries.
The title game is a tribute to the will of senior leadership.
To Dixon and Baxter and Byron Mouton for Maryland, who have built a 109-31 record and made the Terrapins a force in four years.
But also to Fife and Odle at Indiana, who endured the hurricane of the Knight firing, and all the fallout that followed, and whose future for the moment is just one basketball game.
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