Love Pizza and Basketball

With nearly 11,000 fans in the stands for the First Round games on Sunday at Comcast, Maryland easily topped the attendance charts for all the NCAA Tourney venues. In fact, Comcast was the only arena in five figures. But that wasn't good enough for Coach B . . . she'd like to see more Maryland students at tonight's Second Round game against Utah.

So, according to Marissa Coleman's latest blog post for Sports Illustrated, Coach B has devised a strategy to lure more students -- free food (and student tickets are free, too)! That's right, the first 100 students at Comcast tonight get free pizza courtesy of Coach B! (The rest of us will have to fend for ourselves. Chicken tenders, anyone? Definitely no "kids" on the menu . . . at least not for the fans!)

And not that any Maryland fans need reminding, but tonight's game is against the team that nearly stopped the Terps' championship run dead in its tracks at the Elite Eight in 2006. (Remember the night Kristi Toliver scored 28 points while battling the stomach flu?) Not only that, but Maryland Assistant Coach Daron Park was on the bench that night as a Utah Assistant Coach. So it'll be an interesting "rematch" all around, as Camille Powell reports in today's Washington Post. As Coach Park told Mike Fratto of the Washington Times regarding his mixed emotions about playing his former team, "When the ball is thrown up, they're just a team that's in the way of a goal that we want to accomplish, and I know they feel the same way about me and our team."

Finally, and not that anyone might forget this either, but tonight's game is the last one at Comcast (North) for Kristi and Marissa. Thank you, thank you, for four amazing years!!!

Go Terps! Beat Utah!