Last Call for Atlanta

Connecticut had everything it needed to upset Maryland on Sunday except the one thing you can’t bottle, borrow or teach: experience.

As the game wound down, and throats became dry, and the pace quickened, Maryland’s wily board of directors took control and did what it took to earn a 90-82 victory before a crowd of 29,252 at the Carrier Dome.

The victory, not sealed and delivered until guard Steve Blake made his only basket of the game, a three-pointer with 25 seconds left to double the lead to six, earned for the Terrapins the East Regional title and a trip to next week’s Final Four in Atlanta.

Maryland will face Kansas in a national semifinal game.

Things could have broken differently here. Connecticut, playing with only one senior, might have easily stolen this game. Huskies’ Coach Jim Calhoun thought he had a chance up to the final few seconds.

“I thought we were going to Atlanta,” Calhoun said. “And then he [Blake] hit that shot.”

Led by Caron Butler’s game-high 32-points, Connecticut kept pushing and pushing and pushing and actually found itself with a three-point lead with 4:53 left.

But then Maryland’s veterans’ committee took over.

Senior Juan Dixon answered with a three-point shot to tie the score and then made two free throws to put Maryland back on top.

“He does throw daggers,” Calhoun would say of Dixon. “His shots hurt more.”

Connecticut tied the score one last time, with 2:32 left, on Tony Robertson’s reverse lay-up, but then it was time for another senior moment, as Maryland forward Lonny Baxter scored four consecutive points, two on a basket, two on free throws.

“We just know how to win,” Baxter said.

Maryland led, 83-80, heading into a timeout with 35 seconds left.

Terrapin Coach Gary Williams started drawing up a play in the huddle when Blake interrupted.

“When he was explaining it, I said, ‘I’m going to take the shot,’” Blake said. “I said it just like that. He said, ‘Well, yeah, you can take it if you’re open.’”

Blake is only a junior but has more miles on him than some rental cars. He plays Duke’s Jason Williams two or three times a year.

Yet, it was funny that a guy who had missed his only two shot attempts would demand the ball.

“Blake, that’s the type of player he is, “ Baxter would say. “He wanted it.”

Blake got it.

“That was the end of the game, in all essence,” Calhoun said.

Then, after a foul, Blake made two free throws with 16 seconds to extend the lead to eight.

Blake was held scoreless for 39 minutes and 35 seconds, then scored the five points his team needed most.

In the game that mattered most, the one that launched Maryland to its second consecutive Final Four, Baxter had 29 points and Dixon had 27. Baxter and Dixon scored 16 of their team’s final 23 points.

Baxter was named the East Regional’s most outstanding player, but it could have easily been Dixon.

“They carried us on their backs,” Maryland junior guard Drew Nicholas said. “That’s what senior leadership is all about.”

The game was closer than the score. There were 24 lead changes. The largest margin either team enjoyed was eight, accomplished on Blake’s second free throw with 16 second remaining.

“We just ground out the win,” Williams said. “There had to be a way to win that game and we found it.”

The discovery did not come easily. Maryland was up seven at the half but that lead vanished when Butler made a three-pointer to give Connecticut a 54-53 lead with 13:11 left.

Butler, a sophomore forward, was held to six points in the first half mostly because of foul trouble. He played only 13 minutes and sat out the last 5:15 after picking up his second foul.

Butler was a different man in the second half.

“My team was in a situation where they needed me,” Butler said. “I had to come in to lead the team. I tried my best to do it.”

Butler’s 26 second-half points were not enough. His second-half effort did pull Maryland out of the zone it had used in the first half to stop Connecticut’s guards, Ben Gordon and Taliek Brown, from slashing to the basket.

For Maryland, the mission now is to avenge last year’s national semifinal defeat to Duke and claim the school’s first national title.

“Last year we were close to winning the title,” Dixon said. “This is me and Lonny’s last year going through this. We’re going to do whatever it takes to win.”