Beat Duke AND Deliver Twins? Nice...

Women's basketball had a double (or triple, depending on how you look at it) whammy this weekend: Not only did they squash No. 12 Duke, 76-69, coach Brenda Frese gave birth to twin boys, Markus and Tyler.

And what did the rest of you people accomplish this weekend?

The Terps are a well-oiled machine right now, charging ahead with a 27-2 record. I worry when I see 26 turnovers in the box score, including 12 from Kristi Toliver. It's true her shooting is really great so far (4-5 in the game), but she can't give up four times as many turnovers as assists. As the Godfather would say, "It's just bad business." But scoring and rebounding helped carry the load in this game, and the Blue Devils got a little punishment for beating the men earlier this week. Thank goodness, because I probably wouldn't be the only fan with an aneurysm if we lost to Duke twice in a week.

In more women's news, Crystal "Greatest Terp Ever" Langhorne is being honored on Sunday Feb. 24. Her number will hang from the rafters as a testament to her greatness: not only the all-time leading scorer and rebounder in school history, but the best player on a championship team (hopefully two championship teams if we get our way).

I'm going to advise fans to actually come to the Comcast Center to say farewell to a great senior class. Laura Harper and Jade Perry are both great players in their own right. The game is at 2 p.m. and it's free, so show up!

Go Terps, ladies!


Photo Credit: AP

The Dominators

Name a team in college basketball that has already beaten two top-ten teams this season while playing without their best player.

One: the Maryland Terrapins. And I'm not talking about the team that barely beat Hampton.

The Maryland women are 5-0, but that's not the impressive part. They've already beaten No. 25 Notre Dame, No. 6 Oklahoma and, last night, No. 4 LSU. The Lady Tigers got whipped last night, hardly seeming like a match of two top-five teams separated only by one in the rankings. Plus, this is an actual quote by LSU coach Van Chancellor:

"This team is capable of winning a national championship if they keep playing like this."

This presumes a couple of things:

- Chancellor is conceding that Maryland is simply a better team than LSU.

- He believes that Maryland is better than any other team when they play at their highest level, or at least the level at which they played last night.

- It implies that Maryland could beat LSU again if they meet in the NCAA tournament.

The Terps have officially arrived.

Stats:

- Jade Perry helped win this one with a double-double in relief of All-American Crystal Langhorne, grabbing 11 boards and banging in the post for 14. Definitely one of the underrated players on a roster filled with talent.

- Kristi Toliver continued her stellar play, scoring 23 and dishing out 7 assists (We'll overlook the 9 turnovers). She is definitely reaching for that All-American team spot.

- Marah Strickland was 3-of-3 behind the arc. Yeah, No. 2 recruiting class last year. You go, girls. P.S.: Will you be my girlfriend?

- I'm not really sure how this happened, but Maryland had 18 turnovers - to LSU's 8 turnovers. And we won. Maryland did own a slight advantage in rebounds (50 to 34).

Seriously, I've said it before: Give these girls some respect. They are playing as well as anyone right now and the rest of the country needs to check their back.

Or don't check your back. I wouldn't mind seeing Maryland cruise to a championship Patriot-style (only with a soul; Celtic-style, really).

It's cool.

(Thanks to the Diamondback and Adam Fried for letting me borrow this picture.)