The crowd at the Pit got a barnburner. The Terps' Harper and Toliver got the stomach flu. Utah's Kim Smith got a slow start, then lit up the second half with a double-double. And Smith's teammate Shona Thorburn got a heartbreaking end to her stellar college career.

After building a comfy margin on Toliver's three-balls, the Terrapins went cold, leading by just one with a minute to play. The Terps ran the clock down, then missed.

Thorburn-- playing with a tweaked ankle-- drove on the final possession and got fouled: she missed the first free throw, but made the second, sending her Utes to a crushing overtime in which Maryland scored every field goal.

Maryland coach Frese had the stomach flu too. "I wanted to slow the tempo down," she explained. "I thought it was to our advantage that Utah wanted to do the same. I just felt if we were going to last for 40 minutes that we really needed to slow it down."

The Terrapins get ready for Boston, their first Final Four since 1989: they'll meet UNC or Tennessee, two of the three teams that have beaten them this year. (The third, Duke, occupies the other Elite Eight bracket.)

Thorburn and Smith get ready for the WNBA. Will Thorburn be remembered for one mistake? Or as her conference's all-time assist leader, the owner of the only triple-double in MWC history, and the engine behind the Utes' success?

The answer should be clear... to everyone else. For Thorburn herself, it hurts. "You could smell it," she said, in tears. "That's how close we were... I had... the two biggest free throws of my life and you know, I tied the game."