The date: November 26th, 1993
The place: US Air Arena in Landover, Md.
The scene: The Maryland Terrapins vs. the Georgetown Hoyas - A College Basketball classic
The Hoyas were the dominant team in the D.C. area at the time, and ranked #15 as the Terps were trying to come back from NCAA sanctions that were imposed on the school following illegal recruiting from former coach Bob Wade. The Terps and Hoyas use to play each other often but there had been a 13 gap between the last time Georgetown faced their crosstown rivals. New coach and former Terps player Gary Williams had taken over the basketball program at Maryland a few years prior and was trying to rebuild the program back up to the recently passed days under Lefty Drisell and Len Bias. Gary was also trying to re-establish Maryland's recruiting in the local market, iespecially in Baltimore. Maryland was fortunate enough to land two fantastic freshman for that 1993-1994 season as Baltimore native Keith Boooooooooth and Norfalk, VA native Joe Smith both committed to Maryland and made sure the world knew who they were after this game.
The game battled back in forth, with Maryland eventually tying the game and forcing OT. Then, with about 25 seconds left in OT and Georgetown up by 1 and trying to employ the Dean Smith 4 corners keep away game, Maryland was able to steal the ball and bring it up court with 14 seconds left and called a time out.
During Maryland's last play, PG Dwayne Simpkins was inbounded the ball back court and he began bringing it back up towards Maryland's basket. Seeing that star Joe Smith was covered, Simpkins sees a big hole in the lane, drives toward the basket, puts up a floater and boom, Maryland is up 84-83 and holds on to beat #15 Georgetown.
Many of you may think this game is meaningless, but this was the beginning of Maryland's rise back into greatness, culminating in back to back Final 4's, an NCAA National Championship in 2002 and an ACC Tourney championship in 2004
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