By TERRY HUTCHENS
The Indianapolis Star

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Sitting in front of his locker Sunday afternoon following a win over North Texas, A.J. Moye wanted no part of a conversation about Tuesday night's national championship rematch between Indiana and Maryland.

Eight months after playing for the NCAA title in Atlanta last April, No. 10 Indiana (4-0) faces No. 9 Maryland (3-0) in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge at 9 p.m. at Conseco Fieldhouse.

Last year, Maryland broke open a tight game in the final 10 minutes and defeated the Hoosiers, 64-52 for the championship.

"These are two different teams," Moye said. "You can't really go there. We don't have a couple of our big guns from last year and they probably lost 70 percent of their team. They lost offense, defense, everything.

"It's still two heavyweight foes going at it and there will always be some feeling of vindication. But the way I see it, these are two different teams trying to create their own identity."

It's difficult to argue with Moye's logic. Seven of the 10 starters from last year's game have moved on.

For Maryland, that amounts to 47 of the 64 points scored in the national championship. IU lost 19 of its 52 points from the title game.

Indiana's leading scorer in the game, Kyle Hornsby, is back. He scored 14 points against Maryland, including four 3-pointers.

While Moye makes good points, not all of his teammates share his sentiments.

"This is a revenge game," said senior forward Jeff Newton. "They stole something from us last year and we want to try to get at least some of that back."

Indiana will be out to do something that few teams have been able to do in recent years -- win a national championship rematch.

The last five times that participants in the national championship game have met the following season, the national champion has prevailed.

The last time the runner-up won the rematch was in 1991, when Duke avenged a national championship loss to UNLV with a 79-77 victory in the NCAA tournament.

Indiana coach Mike Davis is hoping the Hoosiers can follow Duke's lead and reverse the recent trend. He said he sees the significance of Tuesday night's game as being important for his team's overall development.

"The stakes are really not different for us," Davis said. "Our goal is to get a high seed in the tournament, and the only way to do that is win. To get a high seed later, we have to beat good teams like Maryland now."

Indiana senior guard Tom Coverdale acknowledged he's eyed the Maryland game since the ACC-Big Ten matchups were announced in June.

"I think it's going to be an emotional game for a lot of us," Coverdale said. "Last year's game is still very fresh in all of our minds."

He scored eight points in last year's title game, including a driving layup at the first half buzzer that got the Hoosiers to within six at 31-25.

IU took its only lead of the game at 44-42 with 9:53 to play on an inside shot by Jared Jeffries.

"Right then, I thought we were going to find a way to do it again," Hornsby said. "But we just couldn't sustain it. We couldn't hit the big shot when we needed it down the stretch."

Maryland outscored Indiana 22-8 the rest of the way. Donald Perry hit a 3-pointer in the closing seconds to get IU back to within 12.

Both teams are off to good starts in the 2002-03 season.

The Hoosiers won last week's Maui Invitational with victories over Massachusetts, Gonzaga and Virginia. Sunday, they defeated North Texas 84-58 to improve to 4-0.

Maryland is 3-0 with wins over Miami (Ohio) 64-49, The Citadel (97-49) and Duquense (89-39).

Maryland coach Gary Williams is looking forward to how his team responds to an early season matchup of top 10 ranked teams.

"Indiana has the motivation edge after last year," Williams said. "They are going to come after us, but we need someone to do that to see how we react to that. We will learn more about our team that day. It's gonna be a test for our whole team to see if we can distribute the ball to the guy that is open."

Four of Maryland's current starters played in the national championship game, combining to score 17 points. Senior guard Drew Nicholas led the way with seven points, and senior guard Steve Blake added six.

Indiana's leading scorer this season, freshman Bracey Wright, remembers watching last year's championship game in New York where he was playing in the McDonald's All-American game.

"They had a place for us to watch the game at the hotel and we were all crowded around a big screen TV," Wright said. "It was a good feeling to know that this season I would be playing for that Indiana team."

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Notes

After averaging 17 points over his first four games of the season, Wright was named the Big Ten's player of the week on Monday.

He scored 21 points against Virginia in the championship game of the Maui Invitational and earned tournament most valuable player honors. He came back Sunday to score 21 more to lead IU to a non-conference victory over North Texas.