BY BRIANA GORMAN

bgorman@heraldsun.com; 419-6668

CHAPEL HILL -- With nine games left on its schedule, North Carolina's window of opportunity to make the NCAA Tournament is getting smaller and smaller.

The Tar Heels need to win at least five more games to have a shot of slipping into the bracket without winning the ACC Tournament, and they'll get another chance to get back on track today when they visit Maryland (2 p.m., Fox Sports).

Parts of Maryland were walloped with up to two feet of snow over the weekend, but the game is still on as scheduled.

UNC (13-9, 2-5) is coming off a 74-70 loss to Virginia Tech on Thursday, and even though the Tar Heels played with the effort and intensity that had been lacking the past few weeks, they still left Blacksburg, Va., without a win.

The key for the Tar Heels today will be if they can carry that intensity over into a game against a tougher opponent. Even though the Terrapins are not ranked in the national polls, they are second in the ACC standings.

Maryland (15-6, 5-2 ACC) is coming off a 71-67 victory over Florida State on Thursday, and its two league losses were at Wake Forest and at Clemson.

The Terps are led by senior Greivis Vasquez, who is the ACC's fourth-leading scorer with 17.7 points per game, and he is second in the league with six assists per game. The ACC's assist leader is UNC's Larry Drew II with 6.2 per game.

It will be UNC's first trip back to College Park, Md., since the 88-85 overtime loss a year ago -- just one of the Tar Heels' four losses during their run to the NCAA championship. In that game, Vasquez recorded a triple-double to rally the Terps from a 16-point deficit and end then-No.3 UNC's 10-game winning streak.

It's a much different Tar Heel team entering the Comcast Center today.

UNC has lost five of its past six games and is on the brink of missing the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the 2002-03 season.

Deon Thompson and Ed Davis are the only Tar Heels averaging double figures, as Thompson scores 14.4 points and Davis 14.0 points per game.