Offense Leads Terrapins' Revival

Maryland guard Greivis Vasquez didn't bother to hide the swagger in his step as he headed for the exit of the Terrapins' locker room last week, not long after another impressive scoring barrage paced a victory over Virginia.

A few minutes earlier, Vasquez tried to explain exactly how in the past six weeks the Terrapins have morphed from an offensively inept team to an explosive one, a metamorphosis that has propelled the Terrapins back into the ACC race. Struggling to find the precise words, Vasquez motioned to a whiteboard where a few faded words scrawled in Coach Gary Williams's handwriting offered at least one piece of the answer.

"Inside-outside on offense," read the message, which was the first entry in a list of priorities.

"Coach was saying that, and I was trying to do that," Vasquez said with a satisfied smile.

"We just played inside-out."

Through their first 18 games of the season, the Terrapins surpassed the 80-point mark only once. But Maryland has cracked that barrier in each of its past four games, a stretch in which the Terrapins are averaging 84.6 points. After hovering around the low 40s, Maryland's field goal shooting has soared to 52 percent over the last four games, a span in which the Terrapins knocked off then top-ranked North Carolina, took Duke to the brink and held off Virginia and Georgia Tech for key ACC victories.

When they travel to Boston College tonight for another key ACC matchup, the Terrapins will arrive feeling like a different team from the one that fell to the Eagles at Comcast Center on Dec. 9.

"When you play in a game in December, it's really interesting to watch your team and how it changes if you do play that team again later on in the year," said Williams, who could earn his 600th career victory tonight.

But yesterday, Williams didn't seem as pleased with approaching a milestone as he was with the improvement his team has shown since absorbing home losses to Ohio and American in December.

While that two-game stretch is generally viewed as this season's rock-bottom point, the Terrapins instead used it as a period of introspection, beginning with a concerted effort to sharpen their shoddy execution.

The Terrapins watched film that exposed a laundry list of flaws that short-circuited scoring. Aside from dropped passes and other forms of sloppiness, they fell into a habit of rushing offensive possessions, failing show the patience needed to allow plays to develop.

"I think it was just a matter of us figuring it out," said forward Landon Milbourne, who has picked up his scoring as the season has progressed. "We couldn't see it at first. But now we've watched a lot of tape and listened to coach. We tried it and now it's working."

Perhaps the biggest beneficiary of the change has been center Bambale Osby, who has grown into an offensive threat. Osby has averaged 15.3 points in his last four games, nearly double his career average. Some of the scoring boost can be attributed to his improved free throw shooting: A career 64 percent free throw shooter, he has made 14 of his past 19. But Osby has also been more aggressive in taking shots because he has received more touches while in position to score.

"It's just confidence," said Osby, a senior. "It's going out there knowing that you're a big part of the team, that you've worked hard, and that you know you can play basketball."

With Osby evolving into a force, the Terrapins have embraced an offensive identity marked by crisp passing, sharp ball movement and a commitment to establishing a solid inside-outside attack that was non-existent just five weeks ago.

"Now, you can see the difference," Terrapins forward James Gist said.