Jalen Smith of Maryland carries the weight of the NCAA tournament

JACKSONVILLE, Florida – The last 30 seconds on Saturday is Jalen Smith's season and they are the essence of college basketball. In an instant, all the work he was doing and the trust he had sometimes lost reached him in the corner, fixing a pointer with three openings. A moment later, the game that he knew was going to happen – screen of ball at the top of the key, with the LSU's playmaker slipping, ready to drive – came to him, as his coaches had him. ad.

Smith is 6 feet 10 inches tall. When those last 30 seconds went by – half a minute during which he lived all that the NCAA tournament has to offer – he was a puddle of water. He made the three pointer. He could not stop the Waters road. The first almost made him a hero. The latter, well, that left him not only bawling on the ground, but falling on the sword afterward.

"I had the impression that it was my fault. The lay-up was on me, "Smith said. "I should have got it, but I did not do it. I have the impression of having failed.

[Terps fall to LSU on late basket by Tremont Waters]

There is so much to digest about the 69-67 loss that ended the Maryland season with a barren groin kick. How and why did Terrapins decrease by 15? What is the fault of coach Mark Turgeon that led to a technical foul in the second half, two free throws coinciding with the last margin? Will we ever be able to count the Maryland shots – naked overlays, some of them – that hit one side of the board, then the other, but still bounced? What if the Terps did not miss five free throws in the second half?

That's what makes all this so difficult. All of these thoughts were suspended in the small locker room at the VyStar Veterans Memorial Memorial Arena, where the Terps folded into stalls and stared into space. But what is worse than that: they will stay with the Terps until spring. They will stay there during the summer. They leave a program in Maryland that once had seven Sweet 16s in 10 years with an appearance on the second weekend of the tournament in 16 years.

"It's a crazy game," said Maryland coach Mark Turgeon.

[The latest news and updates from the NCAA tournament]

Did we mention that if the Terps, seeded sixth, were stuck in front of the third-seeded Tigers, would they have played this Sweet 16 match at Capital One Arena? They could have taken Metro to an NCAA tournament match.

Smith, among others, would have crawled there.

"It's a difficult thing," he said, almost inaudible.

These Terps had not known the NCAA tournament. Now, they know it too well. It's an expansive thing that gives credibility to a season and credibility to a program and extends from the anticipation of Sunday Selection to, in the case of Terps, the exaltation of time. a first-round victory that could have been lost. on Belmont and, ultimately, abject deception after this last horn of Saturday.

"They deserve better," said Turgeon. "They deserved better today."

[Svrluga: The NCAA hypocrisy of Maryland-LSU is hard to look past]

Distill until the last minute. If you welcomed visitors from Mars and explained to them why the NCAA tournament even gave viewers the feeling of needing intravenous fluids, you could do worse than slip into the recording. Saturday's match, starting with the Maryland overtaking 67-64 32 seconds from the end, because Skylar Mays, of LSU, just quietly emptied a point three.

The idea of ​​Maryland, with the little time left, was to give Anthony Cowan Jr., junior leader, a two-point shot on the left. The Terps could then quickly touch the ball and face a deficit not exceeding one point but not exceeding three.

But when Cowan entered the lane, Mays was at his side and the imposing LSU's Nazu striker was hiding behind him. Cowan turned to the corner where Smith was standing alone.

Thursday, Smith secured victory over Belmont by playing fiercely around the rim, making 8 shots on 9 and not hoisting a single pointer to three points. On Saturday, however, he was so caught off-guard as expected by Terrapins' throwing selection early on. When Cowan's pass came into his hands, Smith took four three-point shots and missed them all.

This fits perfectly with Smith's first-year season. But here's the thing: at that moment, at the last minute of his 33rd game, he was no longer a freshman. What should he do?

"I just saw a big three open," Smith said. "Then I just took it."

At 25.8 seconds from the end, he was shaken by the net. The section of the Red Terrapins dressed in the bleachers thundered his approval.

When LSU followed with a timeout, Turgeon told his accusers what to expect. "We showed them a central screen," he said, and that's precisely what happened. Darryl Morsell, the Sophomore program guard, was watching Waters, the Connecticut boy who had initially signed for Georgetown, but opposed it when former coach John Thompson III was fired.

And now Reid came to Morsell's left, making the choice. Only 5 to 11 of Waters remained in Smith, who had almost a foot on him. "I tried to stop him, but he just put it in the basket," Smith said. The waters dug the ball under Smith. Terps striker, Bruno Fernando, started to help

"I wish he did not meet Jalen," said Turgeon. "And I wish that he had managed to bypass Jalen, Bruno would have pinned him on the glass." But that did not happen that way. "

The way it happened, the ball bounced high on the glass and through with the clock indicating 1.6 seconds. When Eric Ayala failed to hit the rim all over the field, Turgeon could only sit on the sidelines as his players collapsed and the Tigers rushed to attack Waters.

"I was at the bottom of the pile of dogs," said Waters, "and just the feeling, it's a sensation."

Maybe someday Smith will know this feeling. Immediately after, it seemed like a galaxy. He was sobbing when he was heading to the central courtyard, sobbing when he rested his head on Fernando's shoulder, sobbing when he passed the Maryland fans section – who was standing and cheering his team – in the tunnel leading to the cloakroom.

"He is young and just turned 19," Ayala said. "It hurts him. It hurts everyone right now.

Much has been said afterwards about how such an experience will bring the Terps closer together, how they will be better prepared for such a moment in a year. But Fernando should be an NBA lottery choice, so what is most likely is that this mix will not come back.

We do not know about Smith's future either. But we know that he added something to his past Saturday, a half-minute in which all of what one feels in March could be lived through him.

"I'll be better because of that," he said. It was 30 minutes after the match. His eyes were still swollen.