BY STEVE HANF
SALISBURY POST

The emotion raced around the Charlotte Coliseum, touching everyone in different ways.

Gary Williams seethed in front of the Maryland bench, screaming wildly in disbelief.

The collective groan put forth by the Terrapin faithful offered a similar sentiment —and one that was completely drowned out by the screams of 20,000 others.

For Wolfpack fans, the mood bordered on delirium. For the others taking in the ACC Tournament, it was sheer pleasure at watching a favorite “love-to-hate”kind of team falter.

Then there was the man responsible for it all: freshman Julius Hodge. After nailing an off-balance, falling to the left, desperation 3-pointer at the shot-clock buzzer, he gathered himself, headed down the floor and pointed at the ESPN cameraman seated along center court.

“I was pointing inside the camera, maybe a little bit to Dickie V also, just trying to stake my claim that I’m one of the best freshmen out there,”Hodge said of the moment. “I was just really happy at the time, really emotional.”

As were his teammates. When Hodge’s shot went in with 1:17 to play in Saturday’s semifinal game, it gave N.C.State a six-point lead the Terps couldn’t overcome. For that, there was joy.

Watching Hodge — the exuberant, precocious rookie — there was mirth.

“We try to calm him down, but he just won’t calm down,”Marcus Melvin exclaimed with a wide grin. “It’s like he’s in a groove, in his own zone. You can’t get him out of that zone. He’s an emotional player. He knocks down a shot like that, you’ve just got to let him celebrate.”

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Actually, Hodge didn’t need to point to the cameraman or Dick Vitale to be noticed. When Hodge scored a career-high 21 points against Virginia this season, he earned the famed announcer’s “Diaper Dandy of the Week” award.

With Saturday’s heroics on a stage like the ACC tourney, Hodge may have introduced himself to a few more hoops junkies out there. His unlikely 3-pointer not only pushed Cinderella State into the ACC finals, it knocked off the second-ranked team in the country.

That makes for good TV — as Hodge well knows.

“I’ve been looking at ESPN and teams making shot after shot at the buzzer and playing well when they’re underdogs,”he said. “I thought, ‘Why not throw it up?’This is March Madness. Anything can happen.”

Maryland, the tournament’s No. 1 seed, led only one time in the second half Saturday, but a comeback was in the works. The Terps cut the margin to 81-78 with less than two minutes remaining, putting the pressure on State to get a score.

The Wolfpack worked the clock and passed the ball around the top of the key in a possession that quickly disintegrated. Then the ball landed in Hodge’s hands.

“I heard the crowd say two seconds, so I looked to make sure they weren’t trying to fool me,”he said of the dire situation. “Then when I looked at the rim there was one second.”

Now-or-never time. The line drive hit nothing but net.

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Williams rushed off the Maryland bench in a fit of anger, waving his arms and cursing.

“You know, I don’t mind a guy taking a nice … jump shot,” the Terps’ head coach calmly said later. “But that —I don’t know what that was.”

It ended up being the deciding blow. Maryland answered immediately with a Lonny Baxter layup in the low post. In fact, the Terps even had two 3-point shots to force a tie in the waning seconds. But their spirits were broken.

“They just put their heads down, like, ‘Damn,’ ”Melvin said. “I can understand why they did that because that happens to us sometimes, when you feel like no matter what you do, somebody can hit a long shot like that.”

“It took a lot of air out of them,”agreed State guard Archie Miller. “If they had gotten a stop there, it’s going to go down to the wire.”

“After he made it, it was kind of a long sigh, a ‘Whew!’ ” commented senior Anthony Grundy.

While the shot brought relief to his Wolfpack teammates, Hodge himself was pleased, but not overly impressed. It turned out to be a great moment, a season highlight, but nothing more.

When asked if hitting the clutch game-winning jumper in the ACC Tournament was like something out of a dream, he quickly answered no.

“To tell you the truth, my dream shot is jumping from the foul line and getting a dunk on someone,”Hodge said. “But I guess that came close.

“I knew I had to take the shot. I couldn’t call timeout, I couldn’t make a pass. It’s just good I made the shot. If I would’ve missed and we ended up losing, I would’ve been very disappointed in my performance.”

And had a mere 11 points — instead of 14 and something to point out to the basketball world.

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Contact Steve Hanf at 704-797-4256 or shanf@salisburypost.com .