Feb. 2, 2009

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - Maryland hits the midway point of the Atlantic Coast Conference schedule with a trip to North Carolina for a Tuesday-night matchup. The Terrapins are 3-4 in the ACC after a 73-68 win at home over Miami last Saturday night. Junior guard Greivis Vasquez fell one assist short of a triple-double, finishing with 11 points, 10 rebounds and 9 assists. The Tar Heels are 19-2 overall and have moved into second place in the league standings behind Duke with a 5-2 ACC mark. UNC has won 5 straight, including a 93-76 win at NC State last Saturday.

* The Terrapins used a 14-for-17 effort at the free-throw line to hold off a Miami comeback bid last Saturday night. Junior forward Landon Milbourne led the Terps with 17 points and now leads Maryland in conference competition in points (14.0 ppg) and rebounds (6.9 rpg). Miilbourne has hit 18 of 19 free throws in Maryland's 7 league games.

* Like many teams, Maryland has been playing a number of tight games in the league. The Terps lost two conference road games on 1/14 and 1/17 in Florida by a combined 5 points.

* The Terrapins have won their last two games against the Tar Heels in a series that dates back to 1924. Maryland won last year in Chapel Hill, 82-80, and captured an 89-87 victory in 2007 at Comcast Center. The Terps face UNC twice this season, with the game at Comcast Center coming on national television on 2/21.

Noting the Tar Heels

National Player of the Year candidate Tyler Hansbrough has had a season that has lived up to lofty expectations. With a 22.4 ppg scoring average, Hansbrough leads the Atlantic Coast Conference in scoring... He is hitting .535 from the field in his 17 games played, and also leads the Tar Heels with a 7.6 rpg average on the boards (10th in the ACC)... Hansbrough has shot 159 free throws in his 17 games and is hitting at an .843 clip at the line (7th in the ACC)...

Scoring 92.4 points per game as a team, UNC has six players averaging in double figures... Junior guard Ty Lawson averages 15.2 points per game and leads the ACC in assists per game (6.5) and assist-to-turnover ratio (3.4)... He has 136 assists and only 40 turnovers this season... Lawson is hitting .547 from the field and .466 from 3-point range...

Wayne Ellington, a junior guard, averages 13.9 points per game, while senior swingman Danny Green scores 13.2 ppg and has hit a team-high 44 3-pointers this season... Deon Thompson is the other Tar Heel regular averaging in double figures at 11.9 ppg...

Roy Williams is in his 21st year overall as a head coach and his 6th at Carolina.

Gary Williams' 20th Season

Head coach Gary Williams reaches another in a career filled with milestones when he coaches his alma mater for the 20th season in 2008-09...

He is the 6th-winningest active head coach in NCAA Division I men's basketball with an overall record of 618-350 (.638)... He ranks 3rd all-time (2nd active) among coaches at ACC schools with 411 victories at Maryland, and also ranks 2nd among active league coaches with 168 ACC victories... Williams is the Terps' all-time winningest coach...

He earned his 400th victory at his alma mater on 11/21 with an overtime win over Vermont... His 397 wins in 19 years at the beginning of the season were an average of 20.9 wins per season with the Terps...

Maryland's 70-65 victory over Boston College (2/6/2008) gave Williams his 600th career victory... Only five other active head coaches in Division I have 600 career wins...

Williams picked up his 400th victory at Maryland against Vermont (11/21)... The milestone came in dramatic fashion, as Vasquez buried a 3-pointer with 6 seconds left to force overtime... The Terps scored the first 17 points of the extra period, earning the most lopsided OT victory in school history with a 17-2 edge in the extra session... Williams picked up the victory over former assistant Mike Lonergan, now in his 4th season as head coach at Vermont.

Looking Ahead

Maryland plays three of its next four games away from Comcast Center... Following the Tuesday matchup at North Carolina, the Terrapins head to Atlanta to play Georgia Tech on Sunday in a nationally televised matchup on Fox Sports Net... Maryland's other road game prior to mid-February is 2/17 at Clemson...

The game with the Tar Heels marks the halfway point in Maryland's ACC schedule... The Terrapins are closing the regular season with 16 straight conference games...

The Terps' next appearance at Comcast Center is Valentine's Day in a 4 p.m. matchup with Virginia Tech... The 6 days between the Georgia Tech game and the Virginia Tech home game will be the longest stretch between games the Terps have had since Finals Week (12/12 to 12/22).

Maryland vs. Ranked Teams Under Gary Williams

Since Gary Williams took over in 1989-90, Maryland has 68 wins over Top-25 teams, including the 80-62 victory over then-5th-ranked Michigan State on Thanksgiving Night.

Williams is the nation's winningest active coach vs. top-ranked teams with seven career victories over a No. 1 opponent (6 at Maryland; 1 at Ohio State).

Under Williams, Maryland has defeated 19 Top-5 opponents, 31 Top-10 opponents and the No. 1 team six times.

Maryland has 16 wins over Top-10 teams the last seven years, including an 82-80 victory over then-No. 1 North Carolina last season (1/19/08).

The Terps have defeated at least one Top-10 opponent in 16 of 20 seasons under Williams, including 13 straight years.

Williams has led the Terps to victories over No. 1, No. 2 or No. 3 ranked teams in seven of the last nine seasons.

Head Coach Gary Williams Quotes - Monday, Feb. 2

On the North Carolina Tar Heels:
"I really believe right now there're probably at least seven teams that you could have an argument for being No. 1 in the country, and Carolina is one of them. They had that little stumble where they lost two, but if you've watched how they've played the last couple of games on the road, they've played pretty well."

On North Carolina's players:
"Everyone knows what they have. In other words, they have great shooters on the wings, they have a great point guard and they have a great inside player who was college basketball player of the year. There're not many weaknesses offensively on a team like that. They just have a lot of ways to go. They can bring 6-foot-10 [players] off the bench. They can bring (Bobby) Frasor in off the bench - a guard who played a lot of minutes before he hurt his knee. It's one of the better basketball teams in the country, but they've been that way for 58 years, so it's nothing new."

On how his team is approaching Tuesday's game against the Tar Heels:
"The way you approach it is this is a very good team. You admit to yourself you're playing a very good team, and you know you have to play well. You depend on the fact that you can execute well enough to beat good teams. That's how we've gone in there, and that's how we've gone other places and won big road games. It doesn't always happen. You're not going to beat teams that are ranked in the top-five in the country every time you play them. But you want the players to believe, and I believe, that if we do things right, we will have the chance to win the game."

On what went right during Saturday's win over Miami:
"First of all, we played well...We shot 50 percent the second half, which we hadn't been doing. We scored 44 points in the second half, and we hadn't been scoring that many points. There were a lot of things that went into it."

On forward Landon Milbourne's progression this season:
"With Landon (Milbourne), he's very quick. To Landon's credit, he's become a much better shooter than when he came here. He can face up. He was really a back-to-the-basket player in high school. At Oak Hill Academy he was a back-to-the-basket player. He's had to learn how to face up, how to be able to catch a pass and things like that. He's worked at it. Nobody gave him anything - he's worked really hard to get where he is."

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