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Maryland’s at-large chances take a hit with a loss at BC

Mark Turgeon

Maryland head coach Mark Turgeon looks on in the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Virginia in College Park, Md., Sunday, Feb. 10, 2013. Virginia won 80-69. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

AP

Oh, Maryland.

Barely 72 hours after thrusting themselves into the midst of the bubble conversation with a win over then-No. 2 Duke at the Comcast Center on Saturday, the Terps made the trip up to Boston College to take on the Eagles in Conte Forum.

And, well, things didn’t quite go as planned.

The Terps blew a 33-26 halftime lead, getting outscored 43-25 in the final 20 minutes as they lost 69-58 to BC, one of the ACC’s bottom-feeders. Alex Len had just four points on 1-5 shooting. Seth Allen finished with four points on 2-8 shooting, with two turnovers and no assists. Dez Wells was 4-12 from the floor. Nick Faust was 1-5 from the field.

In fact, if you take away the 26 points that Logan Aronhalt scored, the Terps were 12-43 from the floor and 3-15 from three, managing all of 32 points. That’s not good, but it’s par for the course for one of the nation’s most consistently inconsistent teams. That’s just who Maryland is this season.

Tuesday wasn’t a letdown game. It wasn’t simply Maryland being unable to win on the road. It was more than just one isolated, poor performance.

The Terps are young. Their most talented player, Len, has a tendency to disappear. They don’t have a true point guard, which makes it that much easier for Len to fade into the background while Maryland’s guards fire away from the perimeter.

Perhaps more importantly, Maryland now looks like they’re back to being an NIT team. This loss doesn’t nullify the win over Duke, but it makes it seem all that much more fluky and takes a bit of luster off of the profile of a team that looked like they had a chance to make a run. Thanks to one of the most horrific non-conference schedules we’ve ever seen, this loss will make it tough for the Terps to avoid needed the automatic bid from the ACC to reach the Big Dance.

It’s certainly still possible to get an at-large bid, but are you going to put your faith in a team that hasn’t been able to string together three straight wins since they were playing the likes of IUPUI and Delaware State?

You can find Rob on twitter @RobDauster.