The Maryland Nighthawks aren’t playing this season.

Worse news for the team: Who noticed?

“The team’s taking this year off,” says Adam Dantus, the Nighthawks’ 21-year-old general manager and spokesman.

The Nighthawks, affiliated most recently with something called the Premier Basketball League, played home games at Georgetown Prep’s athletic center last year.

Dantus says the spiffy school’s administration tried to jack up the rents for this season, and the Nighthawks didn’t feel they could afford to play there.

When deals with other big gyms, most notably American University’s Bender Arena, fell through, the ‘Hawks decided to pack it in, at least temporarily.

Dantus, who as a teenage marketing wiz, says the team hasn’t folded.

“There’s a plan to take a tour of China later this year and play some games over there,” he says.

The Nighthawks got tied in with the Chinese diplomatic community when Dantus helped recruit 7’9″ Sun Ming Ming as part of his promotion putting the tallest lineup in basketball history on the floor for a home game.

Ex-Bullet Gheorghe Muresan, a mere 7’6″, was also on the roster for the big night.

One fact that might make touring China tough: Neither Ming Ming nor Muresan are still tied to the Nighthawks.

Nor is any other talent.

“We don’t have a coach or a roster or any players right now,” says Dantus.

But there is some good news: Judging by the big yawn the Nighthawks’ hiatus got from the local basketball community, the team might already be just as popular in China as it is here.