Mosley, Dillard, Weijs each take unique path to final home game at Maryland

There’s a natural order to things in college sports. A group of players come in together, a few might be peeled off in the ensuing four years, and in the end they take their place in a pre-game ceremony before their final home game.

Senior Night ties everything together for teammates who endured plenty in pursuit of a common goal. It is a shared juncture on a long journey.

For the three seniors who will don a Maryland uniform for the final time at Comcast Center on Sunday, the celebration will amplify the strikingly different paths they each took to arrive at that moment. On many teams, postseason appearances or shared hardships as freshmen thread a graduating class together.

For the Terrapins (16-13, 6-9 ACC), it is quite the opposite. It is an unconventional group of three men who will share the stage on one afternoon in March.

The four-year player

Assuming he’s physically able — almost a universal certainty, given his track record — Sean Mosley will play his 130th career game Sunday. He will complete his fourth and final home schedule. He will be the last player introduced during warmups.

He is part of the action, of course, but he’s also part of the background. Mosley fit in from the start, with an old-school haircut and an old-soul game. Little wonder it feels like he is, well, old as his college career winds down.

Or at least older than he actually is.

“A lot of people think I was here for five or six years,” Mosley said. “I don’t know why. They have that in the back of their mind. Maybe because I was starting as a freshman and made an impact right away, guys probably thought I sat out a year and played.”

Nope. He just played from the start. He missed one game as a sophomore because of a sprained ankle. But aside from that, he was always part of the tapestry.

It was always a good fit, even if his production rose and fell over time. Here was the in-state guy who grew up watching local television as Keith Booth and Juan Dixon played for Gary Williams, an old-school coach if there ever was one. Despite interest from Syracuse, the Baltimore product decided to stay close to home.

Milestones came and went. So, too, did Williams, retiring after last season. Mark Turgeon came in, and Mosley was the invaluable bridge between generations.

“Each year we added a couple guys or lost a couple guys, but each year I felt as though we were a family, and that’s the most important thing for me coming from a close-knit family back in Baltimore,” Mosley said.

In the process, he carved out his own place, ever-reliable and omnipresent for what felt like forever but was really just a normal career.

“I was truly blessed,” said Mosley, who has 1,070 career points. “Time flies once you’re having fun in college and winning a lot of games. Four years went past so fast, it felt like I’ve been here for two or three years.”

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