This week's snow storms left a damper on much of the Atlantic coast and even on the Atlantic Coast Conference's schedule, but for Duke and Maryland's men's basketball teams, the conditions left them much the same as they've been all season: a bit weathered, but never too cooled off.
The Terrapins fought off a schedule shift of their Monday game to pound Wake Forest 90-67 and deal with only a couple hours of holdover at Baltimore-Washington International, finally climbing to the top of the conference ten months after taking the national title. The airports in Virginia, meanwhile, were not as kind to the Blue Devils after their 78-59 trouncing of UVa, forcing them to bus it to Durham until 5:45 Sunday morning.
And so even though No. 13 Maryland (16-6, 8-3 in the ACC) and eighth-ranked Duke (17-4, 7-4) have strayed a bit from the sunnier paths of last season, the arch-rivals are arguably coming off their best games of the year heading into tonight's 9 p.m. match-up at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
When the two teams faced off a month ago, the Terps knocked off the then-undefeated Blue Devils, thanks in part to their snapping stranglehold on the post-an area Duke has developed of late to spark some fire on their icy ride through conference play.
"We've talked about some different strategies that we're going to try to use to burn them down," center Casey Sanders said. "And one obvious strategy would be to try to match them on the boards. We know as a team that last time out in College Park we didn't do a great job on the boards. They really had their way with us."
Forward Ryan Randle in particular gave the Blue Devils some strength they couldn't handle at the Comcast Center, muscling his way to 15 points and 17 rebounds. But after freshman Shelden Williams' breakout 20-point, eight-rebound, four-block performance against the Cavaliers, Duke has a little bite of its own.
"It never happens in just one game like there's a magic potion or something like that," head coach Mike Krzyzewski said of Williams. "Certainly we've seen his improvement throughout the year, and at times he's played really well.... We didn't force it, and he just let the game come to him. That's a big step forward for him and our team on Saturday."
One other definite step back for Duke this year has been its free throw shooting. The Blue Devils' 9-for-20 mark at the line in College Park, Md., was clearly not just a product of the red sea of Terps fans last month; Duke has made only 72 percent from the charity stripe since, despite having the nation's leading free throw shooter in J.J. Redick.
Redick's counterpart, though, has been pesky on the floor all year long. Drew Nicholas, emerging from the not-so-looming but just as fiery shadow of Juan Dixon, is putting up a case for conference player of the year, averaging an ACC second-best 18 points per contest.
And whether it takes Dahntay Jones--who canned 24 points on 10-of-18 shooting in the first Maryland game--to guard Nicholas and keep up with him shot-for-shot, or whether it's Chris Duhon beginning to establish some consistency over a hot Steve Blake, it's clear that, as usual, another round of Duke-Maryland will come down to veteran play and bruising basketball.
Then while the snow in the area starts to melt this afternoon, the light sheds on the Blue Devils' second half of the season as they face their first rematch with a team to have beaten them this season, and rumble with the Terps, also the last team to top them in Cameron, 26 home games and two ice storms ago.
"We lost last year pretty good down there so I think you have to really come out ready to play," Maryland head coach Gary Williams said. "If you're not ready to play, you can lose it in the first four minutes, because they do get energized from the crowd and things like that, and you have to get through that first period and into the first timeout. If you can do that, hopefully your players have some confidence and they can play."
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