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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Juan Dixon is leaving nothing to chance in his
final NCAA Tournament.
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The Maryland Terps did exactly what everyone expected them to do in front of their home crowd in Washington, D.C. They handled a gallant Siena team who scraped and fought as hard as they could. All-American Juan Dixon had 29 points to set the pace for the Terps, who simply had too much talent for the Siena Saints to handle.
Maryland faces significantly tougher competition in the second round, as they take on Bo Ryan's hustling Wisconsin Badger team. Gary Williams lost a heart-breaker in Madison last year, he may be looking for payback -- and this time the stakes are much higher.
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A determined Dixon scored 29 points Friday night as top-seeded
Maryland cruised past Siena 85-70 in a first-round East Regional
game.
Dixon, a senior guard, knows that his next loss will be his last
as a college player. So he's not going to stop hustling on the
court until the final buzzer of his final game.
"I just wanted to come out and be aggressive," said Dixon, who
shot 10-for-17 from the field and made all four free throws. "This
is my last time going through this, and I want to tell myself that
I went out being aggressive."
Dixon drove to the basket, pulled up for jumpers and deftly
passed to open teammates when Siena double-teamed him.
"Once he gets his confidence, he can't be stopped," Maryland
forward Byron Mouton said. "I told him to keep shooting, because
he was making them. His shooting was a big difference in the
game."
Dixon, who scored 20 in the first half, fell two points short of
matching the school record shared for points in an NCAA Tournament
game, held jointly by Len Bias and Joe Smith.
The fourth-ranked Terrapins (27-4) on Sunday will face
eighth-seeded Wisconsin, which advanced by defeating St. John's
80-70 earlier Friday night.
Playing against the only team in the 65-team field with a losing
record, Maryland made itself right at home at the MCI Center, which
is only 20 minutes from the College Park campus.
The Terrapins have played two games a year at the arena in each
of the past five seasons. Their familiarity with the building
served them well, as did the backing of the hometown crowd.
"We've got the homecourt advantage," Mouton said. "The crowd
gave us the extra boost we needed."
|  | | Juan Dixon, who led Maryland with 29 points, drives through four Siena defenders. |
Maryland probably would have won without those factors working
in its favor. The Terrapins were eager to bounce back from
Saturday's loss to North Carolina State in the Atlantic Coast
Conference tournament, and Siena had the misfortune of being
Maryland's next opponent.
The loss ended an improbable run by the Saints (17-19), 12-18
before winning the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament
and beating Alcorn State 81-77 in an opening-round game Tuesday.
That victory enabled Siena to become only the second team with a
losing record to win an NCAA Tournament game. But the Saints' bid
to become the first 16th seed to beat a No. 1 seed was abruptly
rejected by a Maryland team on a mission to win its first national
championship.
Siena had 16 turnovers, shot 41 percent and was only 8-for-22
from 3-point range.
"They're good enough without our help, and we helped them quite
a bit," Saints coach Rob Lanier said.
James Clinton scored 16 points and Dwayne Archbold added 14 for
Siena. Prosper Karangwa, who scored a career-high 31 against Alcorn
State, was held to 7 on 3-for-8 shooting.
"They're real good," Archbold said. "We made a lot of
mistakes, and they capitalized on almost every one of them."
Siena trailed 24-21 before the Terrapins used a layup by Lonny
Baxter, an alley-oop dunk by Chris Wilcox and a four-point play by
reserve Drew Nicholas to go up by 11.
The Saints hung around a little longer, but they never could
come up with a way to control Dixon, who easily thwarted Siena's
man-to-man defense and its 2-3 zone.
Dixon single-handedly turned a 10-point cushion into a 50-31
lead during a 3-minute stretch of the first half. First, he made
two free throws and hit a 3-pointer. He then drove to the basket
and passed to Tahj Holden, who was fouled on a dunk and made the
free throw.
Clifton stopped the run with a basket, but Dixon answered with a
3-pointer.
Maryland led 52-38 at halftime, but coach Gary Williams angrily
called a timeout early in the second half after Siena closed to
52-42. Dixon then scored six points in an 8-0 burst that made it
60-42, ending all suspense except whether the ACC player of the
year would break the school single-game scoring mark.
He didn't make it, but it was still a very good night for the
Terrapins in their first NCAA Tournament game as a No. 1 seed.
"You always feel pressure," Williams said. "What do you say
if you lose a game like that, and the No. 1 seed? `I'm going to
Mexico?' You don't say I'm going to Disneyland, I know that." | 
