A Look Ahead: The Schedule

Some people are starting to get a bit excited about the possibility of a late season run at the tourney. By no means is it out of the question, but it's a very long shot.

It's fair to say that Maryland will almost certainly need 9 to 10 ACC wins. A best case scenario would probably be 8-8 in conference with one ACCT win - if Maryland gets in with that resume, the field must be really, really weak. More likely, Maryland will need either a 9-7 record with one ACCT win, or an 8-8 record with two ACCT wins.

Maryland currently sits at 4-5 in the ACC. Three of the games remaning on the schedule can be classified as "definitely winnable". No one will argue that Virginia, NC State, and Virginia Tech (espeically because they'll be fighting for a spot as well) are games the Terps could pretty easily win. Those are the games that they have to pull out. That leaves four more games, at least one of which the Terps need to win. Maryland gets North Carolina and Duke (and Wake) at home, and has to travel to Clemson and Wake Forest. They'll be heavy underdogs in all of those games, but they may be able to pull out one (hey, BC beat UNC, VT beat Wake, etc.). If they can, that puts them at 8-8, which really is the magic number. 9-7 would be ideal, but it may be asking too much.

That puts them in the ACC tourney, in which they'll likely need to win two games. It's too early to know exactly who'll they'll be playing, but it will probably be an upper-middle tier team (like Miami) in the first round and an "elite" team (like UNC or Wake) in the second. While I could easily see the first round, I have trouble seeing Maryland toppling two of the best four teams within a matter of weeks. It's a very tall order for any team, particularly for one with chronic schizophrenia.

If I had to guess, I'd say they end up 7-9. They're just too inconsistent at this point to warrant a guess any higher. I hope I'm wrong.