Maryland Basketball: New Recruits

Boston College Eagles (15-6, 3-3 ACC) vs.
Maryland Terrapins (13-6, 2-3 ACC)
Comcast Center – College Park, MD

So as long as Maryland is going to be bad, they might as well be historically bad. No point in doing anything half-assed. It was the largest loss in Gary’s career at Maryland or any other school. It was only the second time in 20 years the Terps failed to break 50 points (now I know what Wisconsin fans feel like). It was the school’s largest lost to Duke. It was the worst loss in program history since losing to Army by 63 in 1944. How Army even fielded a team in 1944 is beyond me. What, did Eisenhower come back from Normandy to play in that one?

The loss isn’t the real problem here. The fact that it’s taken just two seasons to fall this far behind Duke is the real issue. Just two years ago, Maryland swept these scumbags and placed higher in the tournament than they did. Now they’re suffering 41-point losses to them. How did things fall apart so quickly? I’ll tell you this, it’s nothing that Duke has done. They are still the same team they were in 2007. They’re still the same they were back in 2001 and 2002. For the better part of the last 15 seasons, Maryland has competed on par with Duke. It has taken only two seasons for the bottom to drop out.

This is not a “fire Gary Williams” post. I’ve gone on record many times saying that Williams should be allowed to stay for as long as he wants. He rebuilt the program from scratch, won a NCAA and ACC championship and brought the Maryland basketball program to a national level. All that without one single sniff of a NCAA violation. What more could you ask for? So many of my fellow Terp fans have begun to call for his head following this latest loss. This isn’t smart. If you fire a coach, especially a successful one, you better have a damn good replacement lined up. Or instead of Mike Shanahan, we’ll end up with Josh McDaniels. Let’s see how well that turns out for the Broncos. My guess is not well.

However, this loss should show Gary that he needs to recruit. That doesn’t mean send assistant coaches out to recruit like he used to do with skilled associates like Billy Hahn, Dave Dickerson and Jimmy Patsos. That means that Gary must go out and do a lot more himself. I understand not wanting to get all cosy with AAU coaches. Considering I suffered through the probation era, I’d rather have a mediocre but clean team than one that recruits in the gray area year after year. And I know that Williams is the same way. But there is simply too much talent in the area not to recruit better than this. The two best players on the National Championship team were home grown. Walt Williams, Joe Smith, Keith Booth and Terrance Morris were all local guys. There is no excuse for the University of Maryland to not lock down Maryland players. I’m not talking about Michael Beasley and Carmelo Anthony. Those guys were basically paid to go somewhere else and those are not the kind of players we need to start bringing in to College Park. I’m talking about the Jack McClinton’s and Ty Lawson’s. The Malcolm Delaney’s and Jeff Allen’s. The Terps don’t need a Jin Soo Kim from Connecticut if they could recruit a Chris Wright from Bowie. This is a change that Gary needs to make. If he doesn’t want to do this, or doesn’t have the energy to recruit any more, then he needs to consider stepping down. Again, this isn’t a get rid of Gary Williams post. But he definitely needs to step up the recruiting efforts. He’s gotten spoiled since all his success in the 1990’s and early 2000’s.

That said, we’ll keep the rest of this short. Boston College checks in with Tyrese Rice and not a whole lot else. As usual, I’m in favor of letting Rice get his 30 points while focusing on stopping the rest of the team. If Rice beats you, then fine. But don’t let Joe Trapani, Rakim Sanders and Corey Raji beat you as well. It’s been a bizarre season for the Eagles, who managed to be the #1 team in the country on the road and lose to Harvard in the same week. So that tells you that they have enough to beat anybody, but are still too reliant on Rice to carry them, and can lose to anybody as well.

Call me crazy, but I think Maryland wins this game. There is no way that Maryland can ever play as poorly as they did in Durham this past weekend. Boston College can’t exert the kind of defense that the Dookies did. BC doesn’t have the hustle to dominate the glass. This should be a bounce back for Maryland, setting up a crucial home game on Saturday against Miami. Just a warning, I’m moving this week so there may or may not be a MD-Miami preview on Saturday. Or there will be. Check in for that later.

Maryland 79
Boston College 73’


ACC PICKS:

Miami 74, NC State 66
Wake Forest 84, Duke 75
North Carolina 82, Florida State 70
Clemson 75, Virginia Tech 74