MERCURIAL MORRIS

Most players grow up trying to become Mr. Big Shot, but not Maryland forward Terence Morris.

He is a reluctant star, the Terrapin most comfortable with his head tucked into his shell.

You would think, as a senior, the 6-foot-9 Morris would have taken command of this season’s team, but Dr. Demonstrative he is not.

Morris almost has to be coaxed into performances and talked off basketball ledges.

Unlike shoot-till-they-drop types such as Allen Iverson and Kobe Bryant, Morris doesn’t wake up whistling the mornings after off shooting nights.

After Morris made only one of 11 shots in Maryland’s West Regional semifinal victory over Georgetown, Maryland coaches and players conducted what could be described as a basketball intervention on him, knowing they had to get to him quick or lose him for the all-important Stanford game.

The question was: How do we get Terence to keep shooting.

At Friday’s media session, Morris wore that woe-is-me hangdog look.

Maryland Coach Gary Williams immediately went to work on him.

“All you do is keep shooting,” Williams told him.

And to the assembled reporters he said, “Terence had games this year when he wasn’t shooting well and he broke out of it.”

Before Saturday’s regional final against Stanford, Maryland guard Juan Dixon pulled Morris aside.

Dixon said, “Don’t think, just play. Don’t think about anything.”

And while there were many big baskets made in Maryland’s 87-73 upset of the top-seeded Cardinal, the most important might have been one in the opening seconds, when Morris grabbed the ball and stuck a three-pointer.

It was a shot in the basket and one in the arm.

“I thought Terence Morris hitting that first shot was a big lift for us,” Williams said.

Terrapin center Lonny Baxter was the out-front star of the victory that sent Maryland to its first Final Four, claiming West Regional most-valuable-player honors with his 24-point performance.

But quietly, between the lines, Morris worked with his usual understatement, making five of eight shots. He finished with 11 points and 10 rebounds in 22 minutes and gladly surrendered center stage to Maryland’s center.

After the game, Morris remarked how Dixon’s pregame pep talk had helped.

“I took that to heart,” he said. “After the last three years, I just wanted to be in a situation where I cut down a net and got a [Final Four] T-shirt like this.”

Expectations are interesting things, not always fulfilled or understood by those on the receiving end.

Morris was ticketed for superstardom when he arrived at Maryland from Thomas Johnson High in Frederick, Md.

He was next in an anointed Terrapin lineage, behind the likes of Joe Smith, Walt Williams and Len Bias.

After Morris’ sophomore season, in which he averaged 15 points and seven rebounds, Blue Ribbon Basketball Yearbook wrote, “Whether he likes it or not, Morris is set to become one of college basketball’s premier players.”

Morris was a preseason All-American and named as one of 10 finalists for the Naismith Award.

As a junior, Morris finished among the Atlantic Coast Conference leaders in scoring, rebounding, shooting percentage, free throw percentage, blocked shots and steals. His scoring and rebounding numbers were up, yet the perception was that he was still too passive for a player with his skills.

“Expectations are going to be there, no matter what,” he said. “The third year I went out and put up bigger numbers than my second year and a lot of people said that wasn’t good enough.”

Morris could have easily ditched Maryland for the NBA, but elected to return for his senior year.

He paid a personal price.

His scoring average has dropped from 15.8 points last season to 12. His shooting percentage dipped from 49.3% to 43%.

He made only one of 12 shots against Florida State on Jan. 14 and his career almost ended miserably in the NCAA tournament’s opening round, when Maryland needed every tick of the clock to beat No. 13 George Mason, 83-80.

Morris’ shooting line: 0 for 3.

Could you have imagined the headlines?

“Sometimes you think about things so much that it kind of hurts you out there,” Morris confessed. “That’s what I do sometimes. I’m thinking about my shot too much sometimes and sometimes it’s not going in.”

Maryland survived that game and so did Morris, whose Terrapins are looking to leave a different legacy.

“I feel great for him,” Maryland guard Byron Mouton said of Morris. “People just put too much pressure on him. Terence is a great person, but the media put so much pressure on him it was unbelievable. It could have broken him, but Terence is a strong person, a very intelligent young man.”

Outsiders insisted that Morris needed to play a more prominent role but teammates didn’t see it that way.

“I said, ‘Terence, you don’t have to carry us,’ ” Mouton said. “ ‘Just play your game. Just play basketball.’ ”

Morris knows he may never amount to what others thought he should be.

But what else can Morris be but himself?

“I kind of let the game come to me,” he said. “I’m not trying to assert myself or be aggressive and take things over. Sometimes I take my time and take what’s given.”

What’s this? A player with superstar abilities who goes out of his way to suppress them?

“I try to get other guys on the court playing at the same level, on the same page,” he said. “I’m out there for the team, to lead this team as far as I can, but also try and get everyone on the same page.”

Maryland is not only on the same page, but on the same plane--to the Final Four in Minneapolis, where the Terrapins will play Duke on Saturday.

“That’s one reason I came back, to get my degree, also to make a final push to the Final Four,” Morris said. “I played on some really good teams and we just couldn’t quite get over the hump. I think this year we just have a totally different team that doesn’t think about the past. We showed a lot of people across this country we’re a pretty good team too.”

Maryland is two victories shy of its first national title and, if Morris can overcome his court shyness, the Terrapins may achieve that end.

“I’m not trying to be the man out there,” Morris said, “but sometimes you have to be.”

*

Michigan State (28-4) vs. Arizona (27-7)

2:30 p.m., Ch. 2

*

Maryland (25-10) vs. Duke (33-4)

5 p.m., Ch.2