I don't usually make rock-solid commitments with my time. I like to leave things as open as I can and just go with the flow. You never know when something better might come along, after all. Sunday night at 6:30, however, I'll be busy. Short of the Rapture starting, you'll find me planted squarely in front of the Maryland-Duke basketball game. It only comes twice a year, and for Terps fans it might as well be the championship.
Over the past four seasons, even though the program over all has faltered, Gary Williams has kept the Terps 4-4 against Krzyzewski's Blue Devils. Going farther back, when I was still a student, the Duke game was always huge. Something about playing them gets the team and fans revved up like nothing else. Even when we won the national championship in 2002, the final game against Indiana had no energy compared to the Duke games. Nothing on or connected to the College Park campus stirs up more emotion than playing the Devils in basketball. Shoot, the first time we beat them when I was an undergrad, the students tore down the goal posts. The football goalposts. What makes it all the more intense the fact that it is a such a one-sided rivalry.
For the Terrapin faithful, becoming competitive with Duke came at the same time as some of our best basketball. Through the early 90s we hung in there as a good mid-level team. Occasionally we'd crack the top 25 and were Big Dance regulars, but never took it very far. Then something happened. We beat Duke, and not just in football. In 2000, we showed up, played convincing basketball and won. The next year we did it again. Then we went to the Final Four. Then we won a championship! Even the games we lost to them in that span weren't blow outs. In fact, some of the most exciting games I've ever seen, in any sport, were between us and them. The frustrating thing, though, is that they never seem to care.
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Article comments
1 - Matthew T. Sussman
Wow, almost.