Maryland Is Not An NCAA Tournament Team

After their stunning collapse at home tonight against Clemson, Maryland drops to 18-12 overall and 8-7 in the ACC. They've beat one team with an RPI better than 65 and have three losses to teams with an RPI of 99 or worse. (Each of those losses came at home, by the way). The Terps are just 1-6 against the RPI Top 50 and an abysmal 6-10 against the RPI Top 100. And a season-closing win at Virginia next Sunday will do little to improve Maryland's middling RPI (which should be in the mid-60s after tonight's loss). Even worse, the Terps are now all but assured that they'll have to play on the first day of the ACC Tournament, thus facing the prospects of facing either Virginia (again) or N.C. State in the horrible expansion-caused opening round. Neither of those games would do anything for Maryland's Tournament resume.
Besides the Carolina win, the best thing Maryland has on said resume is their likely 9-7 conference mark. But a 9-7 ACC record isn't what it used to be. Expansion - cruel, cruel expansion - has watered down many ACC schedules and the 07/08 Terps are a prime example of this. Of the top four conference teams in terms of RPI, Maryland played just one in a home-and-home series. (They lost both games to Duke.) The Terps played the other three - North Carolina, Miami and Clemson - just once. On the other hand, Maryland played a combined seven games against the bottom four RPI teams in the league, going 6-1 in those games (assuming a win at Virginia next week.) That I even have to look that up makes me hate ACC expansion even more than I already did, which is saying a lot. I miss the perfect symmetry of the old eight-and-eight schedule so much. I loathe John Swofford and Mark Warner. But I digress.
At this point, it looks like Maryland will need a win in the ACC Quarterfinals (likely against Clemson or Virginia Tech) to have a shot at an at-large berth. Or at least that's the way it should be. Maybe Joe Lunardi will tell us otherwise, but could the Selection Committee really justify giving a slot to a team whose second-best win came at Wake Forest? Frankly, I don't think the Terps deserve a bid unless they make it to the ACC Finals. Clemson is a fine team and all, but a victory over them is hardly the thing NCAA Tournament berths are built on. They're freaking Clemson, for crap's sake.
Tonight was a de facto Tournament game for Maryland and they choked, same as they did two weeks ago at home against Virginia Tech. Plain and simple, they aren't Tournament-worthy unless they make a run in Charlotte.

Update (5:09 p.m.) -- ESPN.com's Joe Lunardi has Maryland as the 61st team in the field. Apparently, Mr. Lunardi likes hitting the sauce.