The Maryland Terrapins and North Carolina Tar Heels meet for the third time in the ACC quarterfinals.

Maryland entered the conference playoffs obviously needing to run the table to grab an invitation. This might be wishful thinking given their results in ACC action but the alternative was a decent showing in the postseason and possibly getting attention from the other postseason tournaments. If their first round 82-60 win over Wake Forest is any indication, the Terrapins might not be 'one and done'. The Terps big offensive day wasn't really a big surprise because scoring is what they do best although 54% marksmanship was better than what could have been hoped for. The Demon Deacons were held to under 41% from the field and crushed on the backboards by a 36-20 margin. Terrell Stoglin led all scorers with 25 points with seven rebounds, followed by 19 points and five pulls from Nick Faust while James Padgett chipped in with ten points and five yanks.

It's no surprise at all that North Carolina won the Atlantic Coast regular season crown for the umpteenth time although crushing Duke by 18 points at Cameron Indoor in the season finale' had to turn some heads. The Tar Heels went 14-3 to win the conference title by one game over the hated Blue Devils so that had to be extra special. UNC didn't just win a lot of games; they won a lot of games against some very tough customers as their number five strength of schedule indicates. Not only that, North Carolina has outscored this schedule 82-66 and seldom sniffed anything less than 70 points. In year's past, the defense was also prone to lapses but those have been far and few between as both ends of the floor have been consistent. Harrison Barnes (17 ppg-5 rpg), Tyler Zeller (16 ppg-9 rpg) and John Henson (14 ppg-10 rpg) give the Heels both scoring and rebounding punch.

First off, Maryland played a great game against Wake Forest but won't beat Carolina. The questions to me are how bad do the Tar Heels want to take this and will that be far enough for the cover. I think these type of games are something of a guess and I will take the points and hope the Terps show up and UNC just wants to move on...