Maryland Falls to No. 1 Duke

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) - Gary Williams heard that things did not go well for his team.

The excitable Maryland coach spent exactly 5 minutes and 51 seconds pacing the sideline as No. 1 Duke beat the No. 23 Terrapins 86-59 Thursday night.

Williams spent the rest of the evening listening to the loss on the radio in the locker room after being thrown out of the game.

Maryland has lost its share of games in a variety of ways to the Blue Devils (19-1, 8-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) in Cameron Indoor Stadium, but none quite like this one as officials played a major factor in an ACC game for the second straight night.

One day after Clemson was called for an ACC-record 41 fouls in a nine-point loss at No. 2 North Carolina, Maryland was whistled for four technicals in the game's opening stages, including a pair that led to Williams' early ejection.

"I feel that you are responsible to be with your team during the game and I didn't do that. It's a shame things happened like they did," Williams said. "It probably wouldn't have made a difference if I was there or not."

The technicals led to 13 points and helped the Blue Devils win their 10th straight. Duke is also off to the second-best start in school history, just off the pace of the 1991-92 national championship team that began 21-1.

Trajan Langdon scored 12 of his 16 points in the first 6 1/2 minutes to pace the surging Blue Devils.

Meanwhile, the Terrapins (12-7, 5-4) had won five of six ACC games since losing to the Blue Devils by 32 points in College Park, Md., on Jan. 3. But Maryland was blown out again after losing its head coach and its composure.

"It's really a bad feeling because you ask your players to work really hard and do a lot of things for the good of the team and obviously what I did wasn't for the good of the team," Williams said. "I feel bad but I also feel frustrated because of the situation."

Rodney Elliott paced Maryland with 13 points.

The ACC office in Greensboro had sent a letter to schools this week warning teams about recent unacceptable bench and court behavior. Officials Larry Rose, Sam Croft and Zelton Steed took it seriously. Croft was the only one of the three to work Wednesday night's game in Chapel Hill.

"(The officials) are definitely trying to clean it up," said Duke's Ricky Price. "There were no warnings, they were just throwing T's. Fortunately, the coaches and the captains told us to keep our mouths shut and just play and if there was a bad call, just suck it up and run down the court.

"I saw that Clemson-Carolina game and all those fouls called, but I have never seen anything like this in my life, I'm just glad I'm on the team that capitalized on all the points."

The first Maryland technicals were called by Rose against Sarunas Jasikevicius for arguing a non-foul call on a screen and against Williams for taking up for his guard.

Langdon sank the four free throws and less than a minute later Williams was taking a walk to the locker room after Croft threw him out for arguing again. Williams, one of the game's more demonstrative coaches, was also thrown out last January at Florida State.

Williams said there was no cursing used by himself or any of his players during arguments with the officials. Rose said otherwise.

"I warned Gary three times about cursing and he continued," Rose said. "(The first technical) was the result of excessive language and being out of the coaching box."

Rose said the officiating crew received no special instructions from ACC supervisor of officials Fred Barakat following the Clemson-North Carolina game.

"Absolutely not," Rose said. "I have not talked to Fred since Monday."

Assistant Billy Hahn, who won here in 1995 when Williams had pneumonia, took over for his boss 5:51 into the game but didn't fare as well as three seasons ago as Duke went on a 19-2 run to take control of the game.

During that four-minute span, Langdon, William Avery and Steve Wojciechowski each sank 3-pointers and Maryland's Laron Profit was called for his team's fourth technical.

The Blue Devils led 37-12 before the Terrapins made a small run, but Duke took a 57-30 halftime lead and cruised to its 17th straight home victory.

Duke has led all 20 games at halftime by an average of 20.5 points