Maryland Terrapin men’s hoops fans, like fans of most powerhouse basketball teams, are a pessimistic, doomsaying bunch. And with some good reason.

The Terps have a habit of doing well in the regular season and then flaming out in the Big 10 Tournament or the NCAA tournament. Or worse still, sometimes we start strong, finish poorly and don’t make the “Big Dance” at all.

(A note on the “we” I just used. First of all, I support using the royal “we” when discussing one’s favorite sports teams. We’re fans. Relating to our teams on a deep, cellular level is what we do. Secondly, no I did not attend the University of Maryland. I went to artsy-fartsy Bennington where we had, like, the intramural wind dance squad. I adopted the Terps as my own back in the Keith Booth days and have been a die-hard ever since.)

In my opinion, this year feels different. In case you haven’t been paying attention, the Terps are sitting on top of the Big Ten standings—two games above Penn State. Here are five reasons why it’s time for Terps fans to table the doom and gloom and hop aboard the Testudo Train.

1. Anthony Cowan, Anthony Cowan, Anthony Cowan.

Just six feet tall, Anthony Cowan Jr. may never play in the NBA (although he deserves to at least get a shot), but he is, in some ways, the perfect college basketball player. The Terps point guard is a savvy senior and natural leader with an off-the-charts basketball IQ. Dude has amazing court vision and almost always seems to make the right play. He’s fiercely competitive in such a way that he takes losing personally. When the Terps are down, he elevates his own game and carries the team on his shoulders, making clutch play after clutch play. (See the final four minutes of our game against Michigan State.) Look at Anthony Cowan’s eyes late in a close game. There’s a fire there. He knows this is his last shot at a NCAA ring, and he’s going to do everything in his power to get us there. In Cowan I trust.

2. The Terps have Baltimore swagger and grit.

Two of the team’s starting five players are from Baltimore (both went to Mount Saint Joseph High School). Power forward Jalen “Stix” Smith is a dazzling superstar, a can’t miss NBA prospect, who can dunk, shoot, and defend the rim like a pro. He and Cowan make for a formidable—dare I say, unstoppable?—big man/guard combo.

Guard/forward Darryl Morsell is the glue guy—quite simply, the kind of kid you need on any championship team. A shut down defender who is usually tasked with guarding the other team’s best player, he can also use his athleticism to drive to the hoop or make a three, especially when he’s needed the most. Like Cowan, he has an extremely high basketball IQ. And like Cowan, he’s tough as nails.

3. They win in a variety of ways.

Coming from behind, eking out close games, blowing leads and winning anyway—the Terps have done it all. At this point, there’s nothing they haven’t seen. This is good, because they won’t panic if things don’t initially go their way in the tourney.

4. They are road tested.

Have you heard the Terps barking after a victory on the road? That’s because they consider themselves “road dawgs,” a point of pride and a designation that will serve them well in both the Big Ten and NCAA tournaments. It’s extremely hard to win on the road, especially in the Big Ten where large arenas are filled with loud, enthusiastic, and relentless fans, who try to distract you on the free throw line, taunt you when you miss a shot, and do everything in their power to will their own team to victory. The Terps won in a jam-packed Illinois arena, and then to back up that win, they won on the road against the most storied program in the Big Ten: Tom Izzo’s Michigan State.

5. They have Mark Turgeon. (Yes, Mark Turgeon.)

In some ways, the affable Terps head coach is the anti-Gary Williams. While Williams sweated through his suit, screamed at anyone within the sound of his voice, and generally went apoplectic on the bench, Turgeon is much more laid back. It’s not to say he doesn’t get fired up, but compared to the legendary Williams, he’s a Buddha.

This is one of the reasons why Terps fans have been a bit skeptical of Turgeon. There’s also the legitimate criticism that, in his nine years as head coach, he hasn’t taken the team deep into the tournament. (His best showing was the Sweet 16 in 2017.) There’s a feeling that his teams have underachieved or don’t step up in the big games. I generally think that once a program wins it all—as the Terps did in 2002—the fans get a little spoiled and expect to go deep in the tourney every single year. It doesn’t work that way. There are lots of other great programs in Division 1 basketball—and they’re all trying as hard as we are.

That being said, I think Turgeon has something special with his squad this year. Senior leadership, clutch play, unselfish play, and a camaraderie among the players that’s evident on the court. He certainly has the coaching skills to draw up the right plays—particularly on defense—and motivate his guys, who seem to adore him. The rest is up to them. After all, coaches don’t make plays, players do. This year, I think Turgeon has a squad well equipped to go deep in the tournament and silence the naysayers once and for all. Fear the Turtle!

With one emphatic and timely two-handed dunk, Mount Saint Joseph’s alum and Maryland freshman forward Jalen Smith officially let us know Thursday that March Madness is here for the next few weeks.

Breathe it in:

The Terps advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament’s round of 32 with a dramatic 79-77 win over Belmont University, the second-highest scoring team in the country, and the victory was punctuated by Smith’s slam that gave Maryland a three-point lead with just under two minutes left, in a critical and Baltimore-flavored sequence.

Smith’s former Mount St. Joe teammate, sophomore Darryl Morsell, fed Smith the ball on the play and, about 30 seconds earlier, Morsell, the 6-foot-5, 200-pound guard, delivered another key moment with a driving layup in which he drew a foul and drained the ensuing free throw to put the Terps’ up 74-71.

As a two-time state player of the year nicknamed “Stix” for his stringy frame, Smith had his “best game in a long time,” with 19 points and 12 rebounds, Maryland coach Mark Turgeon said. And with Morsell scoring a college career-high 18 points, it was if the MIAA or Baltimore Catholic League tournaments were playing out on the NCAA branded floor in Jacksonville, Florida, albeit in front of a much larger nationally televised audience.

“Our Bmore guys stepped up today,” Turgeon said during the team’s post-game press conference, with Morsell sitting beside him along with teammates Bruno Fernando (14 points, 13 rebounds) and Eric Ayala (12 points). “They were terrific.”

Smith and Morsell, a duo that played for three years together at Mount St. Joe and enjoyed much success at the high school level, powered the Terps’ to their first postseason win in three years, and helped make Turgeon’s hot seat a little cooler by holding off a projected Cinderella in Belmont to set up a game on Saturday against LSU. The game will air at 12:10 p.m. on CBS. (And, speaking of the TV broadcast, you can also catch Baltimore’s Evan Washburn working the sideline during other games throughout the tournament.)

There are more Bmore guys, too. Another Mount St. Joe alum, Phil Booth, who has program bragging rights after winning the NCAA championship last year with Villanova, scored 20 points on Thursday in Nova’s round of 64 win over Saint Mary’s. Booth has scored 122 career points in the NCAA tournament, most of anyone who’s playing in it right now.

After the win, he fielded questions from reporters like the seasoned tournament veteran he is.

“There’s a lot of distractions that come in the NCAA tournament,” Booth said, “so the best thing you can do is focus on your opponent, take care of your body, and focus in on what you have to do as a team.”

The defending champs play Purdue on Saturday night on TNT. (Catch your Law & Order reruns some other time.)

Elsewhere, if you’re looking for a local team to act as this year’s U Might Be Cinderella because, sadly, the UMBC Retrievers did not make the Big Dance this time, your best chances are to watch the 15th-ranked Towson women’s team play perennial power and second-seeded UConn at 7 p.m. Friday.

And if you want to see games in person, the shortest drive is to the Xfinity Center, where the Maryland women, seeded third, are hosting 14th-seeded Radford at 11 a.m. Saturday. Then Tennessee and UCLA play there immediately following in a first-round doubleheader, as the Madness continues and we watch transfixed.

They haven’t lost since before Christmas.
A few weeks might not seem like a long time in the grand scheme of things, but consider that the University of Maryland men’s basketball team has played and won six games since December 22, when they last lost, by four points to Seton Hall. Coach Mark Turgeon’s bunch has won 15 games this season and lost just three, beaten four projected NCAA tournament teams this month, and could jump into second place in the Big Ten conference standings this weekend.

“This team is doing amazing things,” Turgeon said after the latest win, a 74-70 thriller over Wisconsin on Monday night. And that was a few hours after the Terps entered the latest Associated Press national Top 25 poll, with a ranking of No. 19, their highest of the season.

So, in short, it’s time to start paying attention to the basketball happening in College Park. Their next game is at 6:30 tonight at Ohio State, available to watch on Fox Sports 1, followed by a bigger one Monday night at No. 6 Michigan State.

There’s the Big Three.
One goes by Bruno, and the others are freshman forward and Mount Saint Joseph’s alum Jalen Smith, and junior guard Anthony Cowan, Jr., from Bowie. In basketball, it often beneficial to have a Big Three, to make it that much harder for opponents to defend you, and Maryland has a talented trio.

Angola native and 6-foot-10, 240-pound sophomore Bruno Fernando is the reigning national player of the week and is averaging 14.6 points and 9.9 rebounds. He also seems to have a good head on his big shoulders for a college kid, tweeting things about integrity, being blessed, and great team wins.

Meanwhile, the 6-foot-10, 215-pound Smith, the two-time Maryland Gatorade Player of the Year as a junior and senior at Mt. St. Joe, has made an instant impact in his first year, averaging 12 points and seven rebounds.

And the guy with the hottest hand of late is Cowan, the Terps’ leading scorer with almost 18 points per game. He’s got Gary Williams’ seal of approval. Cowan has scored at least 20 in the last three games, and isn’t afraid of taking the big shot. His winner on Monday night was Melo Trimble 2.0. We could watch this four-second clip from 105.7 The Fan’s Joe Schiller all day long:

Free tickets for government employees was a great call.
The Maryland athletic department recently offered free tickets to federal government employees affected by the current government shutdown, and 747 people took them up on the deal by attending either the Terps’ women’s game last Saturday or the men’s game Monday. “This was a great chance to have a family outing, relieve some stress, and watch a great basketball game,” Therman Hawkins Jr., who attended Monday with his wife and 14-year-old son, told Maryland’s athletics website.

The way negotiations in D.C. are going (in the last two days Baltimore native Nancy Pelosi called for the postponement of the State of the Union address; the president, in turn, cancelled her trip to the Middle East to visit U.S. troops), Maryland might need to re-up the ticket offer for their next home game in eight days.

Bracket projections have UMD in the NCAA tournament.
When it comes time to fill out an office bracket for March Madness, oftentimes you’ll do just as well by picking teams whose uniforms you like rather than doing any serious research. In any case, it’s usually easier, and more fun, to pick a school that you’ve at least heard of. Need say we say more than UMBC, 2018?

Current bracket projections (yes, there are already these things) have the Terps as high as a No. 4 seed, meaning prognosticators think they’re one of the top 16 teams in the nation. Keep this up and Maryland alums will have a reason to call out sick to work in a few months to watch the Terps’ first-round tournament game.

To paraphrase Will Ferrell’s zany character in Zoolander (Are we dating ourselves? No one on the current team has probably ever seen the movie), the Terps are so hot right now. Jump on the bandwagon before it’s too late, and it looks like you’re simply a fair-weather fan in March.