A pained look on his face, Maryland coach Gary Williams watched in anguish while his third-ranked Terps sleep-walked through the final 10 minutes of their 92-77 victory Sunday at North Carolina. As the minutes ticked off at the emptying Smith Center, a fan behind the Maryland bench offered Williams some advice that made the look on his face turn from suffering to stone.

Hey, Gary -- please beat Duke! Please ... beat ... Duke!

He wasn't wearing colors of Maryland or North Carolina, so it was difficult to determine his intentions. With No. 1 Duke playing Sunday at Maryland, the guy could have been a Terps fan pleading with Williams to add another delight to what already has been a delightful season. He could have been a UNC fan wanting someone, anyone, to beat the bully down the street in Durham.

Or he could have been someone else, something else, a sinister sort wanting only to taunt Williams with the one thing sure to get under his skin:

A comparison to Duke.

Because Maryland loses that comparison. Every time.

Or at least four of the last five times.

That's how often No. 1 Duke has beaten No. 3 Maryland since Jan. 27 of last season. Four times, in five games, in little more than 12 months. If those five games were a Rorschach test, the ink blob on the paper might read like this: Duke owns Maryland.

"When you realize a team is really good and absolutely capable of beating you, like we do with Maryland, you never feel totally good about it," says Duke's Mike Dunleavy. "But at the same time, when you've had the success like we've had (against Maryland), we also know that if we play our best basketball, we'll like our chances."

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski doesn't subscribe to the theory that his team's recent success against Maryland guarantees such a thing will continue Sunday.

"Whatever case you could make for team that has (dominated a series), psychologically you could make a case for the team that hasn't -- 'this is the time,' all those type of things. It's just a matter of how the leader uses it, and how the people below that leader believe it."

Fine. But believe this: As Maryland has catapulted from the upper-middle of the ACC pack to the national elite faster than you can say "Stevie Francis," Duke has been the cockroach in the Terps' otherwise sweet-smelling kitchen.

Does Duke own Maryland? Last season the Terps won 25 games, but they didn't win the ACC conference tournament. They haven't won the event since 1984, and have only won it twice since the ACC came to be in 1954. They fell a basket short in last season's semifinals -- to Duke, which won 84-82 on Washington D.C.-native Nate James' tip-in in the final seconds.

Does Duke own Maryland? Last season the Terps reached the Final Four for the first time in program history. By March, they might have been the best team in the country. After stumbling through a 1-5 stretch in late January and early February -- a stretch induced by Duke; more on that in a moment -- the Terps won 11 of their next 12 games leading up to the Final Four at Minneapolis. There, they ran into Duke. And there they almost ran Duke off the floor, at least for a while.

The Terps led by 22 points with seven minutes left in the first half, but Duke turned Maryland into Maryland-Eastern Shore the rest of the way, outscoring the Terps 78-45 en route to a 95-84 victory. The Terps made history, blowing the biggest lead in Final Four history. Worse, in their final 13 games they went 11-2 -- losing twice to Duke. And neither of those losses were the worst indignities they suffered last season at the hands of Duke.

Gone in 54 seconds. Remember that game? You can bet they do at Cole Field House, which will be replaced after this season. The state-of-the-art Comcast Center being built next door will have more seats, more luxury boxes and, best of all, less Duke memories. Especially not of the Blue Devils' most recent trip to College Park, last season, a game Maryland dominated for 39 minutes and six seconds. Players on the Maryland bench were relaxed, laughing. Fans behind the Duke bench were waving car keys, as in, "Game over -- start the bus." In those last 54 seconds of regulation, Duke rallied from a 10-point hole to force overtime, where it finished off the shell-shocked Terps.

It was a defeat with lasting repercussions. Maryland lost four of its next five games to fall, incomprehensibly, onto the NCAA Tournament bubble three weeks after being ranked No. 8 in the country. The Terps staged a Duke-like rally, surging to the Final Four in a comeback every bit as impressive as, well, Duke's two comebacks that season against Maryland.

Does Duke own Maryland? Consider the Terps' lone victory in the past five games, a 91-80 bit of vengeance extracted last Feb. 27 at Cameron Indoor Stadium. More to the point, consider this pertinent little tidbit: Duke lost Carlos Boozer to a broken foot, coincidentally enough, at just about the same time Maryland began pulling away.

"When you consider how close those games (Duke won) were, you realize it could have gone the other way," Boozer says. "They could have won four of the last five, and we know that."

They played earlier this season, with the No. 1 ranking at stake, and the Blue Devils did their keepaway thing again. A close game with 10 minutes to play became a 99-78 Duke rout, the Blue Devils fourth win in five games in a series that recently has been close on the court, if not in the win-loss ledger.

So does Duke own Maryland? Not according to Terps guard Drew Nicholas.

"Anybody, anywhere in the country who watched those three games (we lost to Duke) last year knows they don't (own us)," Nicholas said. "We're up 22 in the Final Four, they beat us by two in the ACC tournament, and then we're up 10 in the final minute. We easily could have won all three of those games, and people would be talking about how we've won four of the last five."

But they didn't -- and people aren't.

Does Duke own Maryland? Earlier this week, the Terps had two players nominated for the Naismith national player of the year award. Congratulations to Juan Dixon and Lonny Baxter. Now kindly make room on the dais for the three nominees from Duke: Jason Williams, Dunleavy and Boozer.

Does Duke own Maryland? Dixon has put together one of the truly amazing careers in college basketball. He is on pace to become the only player in Division I -- ever, from Maravich to Macy to Mlkvy -- to score 2,000 points, record 300 steals and hit 200 three-pointers. In fact, in this very game against Duke, all Dixon needs to become the most statistically accomplished offensive-defensive guard in college basketball history is 25 points.

All-American? Probably. Player of the year? Not likely. That hardware, both nationally and in the ACC, might already have been engraved with the following name: Jason Williams.

So, does Duke own Maryland? Nah. But they've got a pretty sweet lease going.

Gregg Doyel covers college basketball for The Charlotte Observer and is a regular contributor for ESPN.com. He can be reached at gdoyel@charlotteobserver.com.