What's worse for a young team, losing by one after seemingly having the game secured or getting blown out by 39?

That's what Maryland and Wake Forest experienced Saturday in their respective road defeats, the Terps at Virginia Tech and the Demon Deacons at Boston College. It will be interesting to see how each responds when they meet Tuesday night at Comcast Center.

"[In] our play in the ACC, we've been good enough to lose two pretty close games,'' Maryland coach Gary Williams said on today's ACC coaches' teleconference. "We're looking to try and get better. I don't think we're that far away from being more competitive. That's what we're looking to do right now and hopefully we can channel that into our games this week.''

The pressure will clearly be on the Terps, given that they are 0-2 in the ACC and play North Carolina and Duke back to back (with eight days in between) after Wake Forest, which won its ACC opener before getting clobbered by Boston College.

Williams tried to deflect some of that pressure when asked on the teleconference if Tuesday's game is a must-win given what follows.

"We're not worried about Duke and Carolina, we're worried about Wake Forest,' Williams said. "That's what you learn. We're not hanging our heads. We've played two good teams, two teams that played hard. We know we have to get better, that's the point. You don't worry about who you're going to play down the road, you worry about your next game and getting the team ready to really go after it and play hard, and that's what you try to do.''

The 112-73 loss to BC was the first major blip for new Wake Forest coach Dino Gaudio, who took over after Skip Prosser died of a heart attack last summer. The Demon Deacons, who start two freshmen (including possible ACC rookie of the year James Johnson) and three sophomores, were coming off a 17-point home win over Brigham Young.

"I think when you have a young group like we have, you can talk about what it's like on the road in the ACC, the intensity level of the games, the competition, you can talk to them and talk to them and there's some lessons you can only learn yourselves. They learned a valuable lesson I hope on Saturday afternoon,'' Gaudio said today.

The Demon Deacons went straight from Boston to College Park since classes don't resume in Winston-Salem, N.C., until Wednesday morning.

As for the Terps, they are hoping to have sophomore guard Eric Hayes back after missing two games with a sprained ankle. But given the quickness of Wake Forest's backcourt, it seems more likely that the Terps will allow Hayes to fully recover for Saturday's game in Chapel Hill and go with a combination of freshmen Adrian Bowie and Cliff Tucker against the Demon Deacons.

Bowie took a big step Saturday against Virginia Tech, scoring 12 points and doing a nice job running the offense (and making a couple of good defensive plays) in 28 minutes.