More Focus This Time Around

Dino Gregory will do his best to avoid glancing at the name on the front of the blue road jerseys of tonight's opponent at Comcast Center. He'll advise his Maryland basketball teammates to do the same.

The Terrapins (7-2) so far have steered clear of the December swoon that many players believe cost them an NCAA tournament appearance last season. In retrospect, Maryland's apathetic performance exactly one year ago today might have sealed its postseason fate. Maryland's home loss to American University last season was its fourth in the month of December (with three of them happening at Comcast Center), burying the Terrapins in a hole so deep that not even an upset of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in January and an 8-8 record in the ACC could dig them out.

Looking back, players attributed those lackluster performances to insufficient focus, effort and respect, areas that have been points of attention over the past week as the team prepared to resume the backstretch of its nonconference slate tonight against American (5-5). For Gregory, the key is as simple as refusing to allow his eyes -- and by extension, his mind -- to wander.

"You see like American or Ohio, and you don't think much of those teams cause you don't hear much about them on ESPN every day like you would hear a North Carolina or a Duke or someone like that," said Gregory, a sophomore forward. "You kind of look at the name on the jersey and say, 'Oh, we're going to beat them. We just got to go out there and lay our jersey down.' But that didn't happen. They came at us. And that surprised us."

Publicly, Maryland Coach Gary Williams has refused to draw any motivation from last season's December downfall. Instead, Williams has clung to the cliches of taking each game as it comes and not looking past any opponent.

But the reason those messages might apply more to this year's Maryland squad than any other in recent memory is because of the Terrapins' slip-ups a season ago. According to several players, their coach is more fueled by the past than he lets on.

"We're already hearing it now from Coach in practice," sophomore guard Adrian Bowie said Dec. 11, a day before Maryland defeated Delaware State by 28 points. "It kind of hurt us last year a lot. So we come in here and we just gotta work hard. We just going to have to do it. We going to have to keep talking about it. We got to do it in practice, and hopefully it will translate into the game."

Williams has acknowledged his team's practices lacked their typical intensity at this point last season, a fact he attributed in part to extenuating circumstances but for which he took full responsibility.

"That won't happen again," Williams said. "I didn't push them hard enough. You worry about the balance there with [fall semester] exams and practices and things like that, but you can't lose the edge. You have to keep going. Hopefully we will."

The Terrapins have won each of their three December games this holiday season, including a victory over Michigan that may prove beneficial in more ways than one. Holding a win over the Wolverines -- who have defeated UCLA and Duke -- will strengthen Maryland's hand when it comes time to deliver NCAA tournament bids.

But the victory over Michigan also stemmed a two-game losing streak that could have led to a familiar domino effect in College Park. The Terrapins were coming off consecutive losses to Gonzaga and Georgetown in a Thanksgiving weekend tournament in Orlando and had lost much of the momentum gained during a 4-0 start that included an upset of Michigan State.

Junior guard Eric Hayes said the team "got into a funk" last season after falling at home to Boston College in early December, its second defeat in three games. Maryland followed with losses to Ohio and American.

"It kind of just snowballed on us," Hayes said.

Having prevented a similar occurrence this season, the Terrapins will look to heed other lessons learned.

"Some teams just go out there and play and say, 'Here we are; adjust to us,' " Williams said. "We're not that type of team. We have to be the ones who prepare really well for each game, and we can do that. There's no game I see where you can say, 'Well, we've got that win.' That's not our team."