Gary just spent about 15 minutes on the ACC teleconference and provided an update upon request about guard Cliff Tucker, who missed Saturday's game with the flu.

"He hopefully will be back in practice today," Williams said. "We'll know later this afternoon. It's one of those three- or four-day deals."

Otherwise, it was more of the same, which is all right. The Terps are settled in nicely on the second tier of the ACC and will probably be in solid shape for the NCAA tournament with three more victories (and can pretty much be confident about making travel plans with four more victories).

It's amazing how all the hand-wringing of December has given way to a fairly quiet conference season -- probably the steadiest since 2002-03, when the remnants of the national title team went 11-5 in the league.

As Gary might remind you, that team was a jump shot away from the Elite Eight. I'd bet he would take a similar postseason result this time around.

--- Patrick Stevens