COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- The radio color guy has a few questions for Gary Williams, who stands courtside at Cole Field House, hands on hips, still panting just a bit from a blowout win over Georgia Tech five minutes earlier, the sweat on his forehead starting to turn into a dull shine. And he will answer those questions, one by one, enthusiastically.

	Gary Williams doesn't want a repeat of last year's game.

But he won't look at the radio guy who is asking them. Instead, the Maryland coach cranes his neck toward the 4,000-seat student section that begins eight rows up behind the scorer's table, addressing each question -- the interview is piped over the public address system -- by speaking directly, almost intimately, to the red sea above him.

Williams' eyes dart from student to student, as if in a mad rush to give each one of them some serious love for their support. Then, he bids them adieu with a Valentine as the team heads into the much-anticipated Duke game, Sunday at this suffocating little arena.

"Our players have talked about what will make us play hard on Sunday," Williams booms, "and you're one of them."

The fanatics roar their approval.

Like other college coaches around the country, Williams has found that recruiting the student body can be nearly as effective as recruiting a student in a 6-11 body. He works them, favors them, defends them, these underclassmen who get red in the face (usually without paint) for the No.3-ranked Terps. And they reward him with a distinct home-court advantage.

The Top 25 is dotted with schools that have risen in national prominence in recent years while emphasizing student seating -- No. 6 Florida, No. 8 Gonzaga, No. 14 Stanford, No. 15 Oklahoma State, and No. 18 Oregon among them. Michigan State, although down this year, re-emerged as a power when students were put close to action at the Breslin Center.

Meanwhile, No. 1 Duke, with its Cameron Crazies, refuses to budge from its elite perch.

The success of those schools has some of the established powers in college basketball scrambling to make their environs more intimidating. At Iowa, Steve Alford carved out a new section for students behind the opponents' second-half basket, called the Hawks' Nest. At North Carolina, Matt Doherty last year brought in risers to get a couple hundred students courtside to liven up the sleepy Dean dome. Kentucky will do the same next year at alum-dominated Rupp Arena, for 750 students.

But perhaps no school reflects the trend more than Maryland, which, seeking an even greater advantage, hopes to set a new standard for student seating next season. When the Terrapins move to the $125 million Comcast Center, a new campus facility, students will get the first 10 rows of regular seating all the way around the arena, with the exception of one corner for press seating.

Cole-zy in Comcast?

Nothing can kill a home-court advantage as efficiently as a new arena, with its creature comforts and lack of intimacy. Witness the Boston Celtics, who haven't enjoyed a good game environment since the Garden was replaced by the FleetCenter. The $125 million Comcast Center will certainly have its share of modern features: seats that are wider and offer more leg room than at Cole Field House, making it easier for fans to sit rather than stand. More concession stands, more distractions from the game itself. More federally-mandated accommodation space for the disabled. And 20 luxury boxes -- at $125,000 a year. To preserve the game atmosophere enjoyed by the Terps at Cole Field House, Maryland officials designed a two-tier seating bowl that is more vertical in slope than that at other new arenas. They hope fans, even those in the upper deck, will feel right on top of the action. "The seat that's farthest from center court will only be nine feet farther than it is at Cole," said Debbie Yow, athletic director. "And we're packing 17,500 in the building (3,000 more than Cole). That's pretty impressive." Joe Hull, the senior associate athletic director who directed the arena project, said the goal was to combine the game atmosphere of the great arenas with all the amenities of a 2002 building. "We're trying to do Camden Yards in a college basketball environment," he said. -- Tom Farrey, ESPN.com

"A lot of places that can raise a lot of money pull back the student seats when they're building new arenas," Williams says. "But when you're going up against teams like Duke, what the (student fans) can do makes a tremendous amount of difference."

The coach is willing to play with fire, to the surprise of some.

"For a school that's worried about the safety of fans and had to take away five rows last year from students, I think it's dangerous," said Mike Kilberg, a Maryland senior.

Kilberg waves at the five rows to his left in the student block, where he sat for three years. He is the definition of the rabid Maryland fan, with his red t-shirt, red nose and red plastic hair underneath a red baseball cap. He has never missed a home game, always acquiring front-row seats in the student section by getting in line before his peers. Like most students, he likes the idea of getting even closer to the action.

But the memory of Renee Boozer lingers. The mother of Duke center Carlos Boozer was seated behind the Blue Devils' bench beneath the Maryland student section at last January's game when she was hit in the head by a plastic bottle. She said she suffered a concussion and threatened to sue. Maryland reeled with embarrassment.

Video of the game's aftermath -- Duke won 98-96 in overtime -- showed this was no isolated incident. Athletic director Debbie Yow estimated that 100 items were thrown in just 50 seconds. One of them, a battery, even hit Kilberg, bruising his right cheek.

Yow concedes that putting students closer to the floor comes with some risk.

"There's a general concern and watchfulness," she says.

But the upside is too alluring. Maryland games are a cauldron of noise, as students fill the arena with chants both creative and vulgar. They spark the alums and families elsewhere in the arena to get involved, making even a game against lowly Georgia Tech seem like a special event. Opponents consider it one of the toughest places to play in college basketball.

Maryland players pity their peers at North Carolina, where donors own the best seats in the privately financed arena. The Maryland athletic department received $55 million in state funds, plus another $20 million in student fees from the surcharge commitment, allowing officials to give greater consideration to student seating.

"At North Carolina, their (students) are up there touching Michael Jordan's jersey," said Byron Mouton, a senior forward. "You've got to have the students near the court to get you pumped."

If Maryland were in the Southeastern Conference, no student seating would be allowed behind the opponent's bench. But Maryland belongs to the Atlantic Coast Conference, where basketball, not football, is king. The ACC requires only that a home team devote the 75 seats behind the opponent's bench to the opponent's fans -- a buffer that may run only a few rows deep.

As a result of the incident with Boozer's mother, the student tickets closest to the opponent's bench are distributed in a different manner. They go to campus student groups like the a cappella singers, who wouldn't ordinarily be able to attend as a group and typically aren't as rabid as the regular fans.

The Boozer incident also prompted Yow to quash Maryland's tradition of throwing newspapers onto the court after opponent introductions, as they sometimes were stuffed with batteries. Student conduct signs also are more visible than in the past. And stationed up and down the student section, every 10 rows or so, security members now stand watch like prison guards. Their yellow shirts, visually striking against the mass of red, send an unmistakable message: Our students cannot be trusted, not totally at least.

But it could be argued that it's a healthy distrust, if the goal is to make devils blue.

"We have great students," Williams snaps, when asked about what kind of behavior he expects from the student section on Sunday. "I'm not concerned. We've had one incident. There have been incidents at every ACC arena in my 13 years here. Don't put it on us that we're something no one else is."

Still, just so none of his fevered followers are unclear on their marching orders, Williams plans to talk with them from courtside two hours before game time -- when nearly all of them will already be at their seats, of course.

"Keep it classy," Williams says he plans to say.

And give a class on the student advantage.

Tom Farrey is a Senior Writer with ESPN.com. He can be reached at tom.farrey@espn.com.