DURHAM -- Duke won a game, but Maryland coach Gary Williams may have found his basketball team Sunday night in Cameron Indoor Stadium.
It was only about a month ago that Maryland dropped its ACC opener at home to Boston College in such a flat performance that the Terps were written off by some as a strong NCAA tournament hopeful.
But against long odds, Williams' 15-point underdogs gave the top-ranked Blue Devils enough trouble in a 71-64 loss to change much of the prevailing thought about his team and the league's imbalance of power.
At the very least, Maryland (10-5, 0-2 ACC) established that the Blue Devils (15-0, 2-0) are vulnerable, even on their home court and even after grabbing early leads of 7-2, 12-6 and 16-9.
"They're really good," Williams said. "But you still have to prove it. And just because this game was relatively close, that doesn't mean they're not as good as people say. I still think they're the best team in the country."
That said, Williams made it plain his team has a potential upside that hadn't surfaced earlier.
"We're getting better. We're better now than we were in November," Williams said. "That's going to be the key for us all season. We have to keep getting better. We got some positives out of this."
Although it was far from a vintage act by either team, the Terps played with the same commitment that has made Williams one of the game's most successful coaches for a long time.
"He's a great coach," Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "He had a great game plan. For 24 minutes, they were the more aggressive team. We hadn't been in a game like that. Michigan State was the closest. ... We got knocked back tonight.
"We're not this great team. We're a good team."
Perhaps more to the point, the Blue Devils are a good team that was great until freshman playmaker Kyrie Irving's foot injury after eight games and is still trying to adjust to his absence.
But even with Irving, the Terps likely would have been a problem Sunday. As much as anyone over the past 20 years, Williams has troubled Krzyzewski's teams.
The last opponent to beat Duke - 79-72 in College Park on March 3, 2010 - the Terps yet again didn't wilt in the Cameron heat and showed unexpected depth.
Only a second-half lift from Duke subs Seth Curry (12 points) and Tyler Thornton (two points, four steals) prevented Maryland from landing a near-knockout in bench production.
Senior wing Cliff Tucker (14 points), freshman Pe'Shon Howard (five points, two assists, two blocks) and even James Padgett at times provided Maryland with more depth than the Blue Devils seemed to expect.
At the half, when Duke led 32-31, Maryland had a 9-0 bench-scoring advantage.
Among the Terps' starters, only star center Jordan Williams (23 points, 13 rebounds) finished in double-digit scoring.
Still, Duke won for the 25th straight time, and despite an intense defensive effort from Maryland, Kyle Singler finished with 25 points, Nolan Smith had 18, and the Devils won with 40 percent field-goal shooting.
"We played well enough to win," Singler said. "We're not going to play perfect throughout the year."
That reality is enough to give other ACC teams renewed hope that the Devils won't run the table.
