Maryland Basketball: We <3 Our Coach

Maryland Terrapins (16-8, 5-5 ACC) vs.
#13/13 Clemson Tigers (20-4, 6-4 ACC)
Littlejohn Coliseum – Clemson, SC

Well, it appears my three weeks without internet may have been the good luck charm that Maryland needed. The Terps managed to win three of four games, with the one loss being expected and very predictable at North Carolina. They’ve had two very solid wins against Miami and Virginia Tech, and had a very ugly one against the Yellow Jackets. Still, 5-5 in the ACC isn’t bad. Have you seen the standings recently? Back to that in a moment.

The most intriguing development during my internet induced hibernation was the ongoing Gary Williams vs. Debbie Yow saga. Williams finally had the guts to tell the truth at a news conference the day before losing to Boston College. I surprised he didn’t do it earlier. When three top players are playing for other schools, and only one of them can remotely be blamed on you, how long would you have held your frustration in? It didn’t seem like a big deal since Gary likes to blow off steam every once and awhile anyway. However, with Yow in North Carolina attending to her sister’s funeral (again, maybe not the best timing by Gary to go off in the press, but it’s hard when the same questions are directed towards him at every conference), associate athletic director Kathy Worthington felt the need to defend the athletic department. Who is Kathy Worthington? Before she spoke, I had no idea. Gary had no idea. 99% of Maryland fans had no idea. Why Worthington felt the need to do this? Again, I have no idea. But she was anti-Gary and it made great press fodder for a week until Yow returned.

I’m about to do something that I don’t like doing. I’m going to compliment Yow. Since she was gone, she didn’t have to comment on the situation. She could have let Williams twist in the wind. She could have said nothing, or given the typical vote of confidence to Gary. But she came out, with Gary, at a press conference, and emotionally defended him. This was not the typical, b.s. vote of confidence. I really believe she was sincere. Now was she sincere because there are still 3 years and many millions of dollars left on Gary’s contract? That’s for her to tell you. But for the time being, Yow put a stop to the “fire Gary” crowd.

Also in the past couple of weeks, Washington Post reporters Eric Prisbell and Steve Yanda put out a lengthy three part series on post-championship Maryland. It was very well written and very well researched. I thought it would get rave reviews from Maryland fans everywhere. Apparently, a large portion of the Maryland fan base was put off by this article, including Gary Williams himself. I didn’t think the article put Gary in a negative light. I thought the article was fair and balanced, and even made Gary look like a sympathetic figure. The article simply explained why Gary hasn’t recruited all that well in the past five or six years. Most of it was blamed on the assistant coach turnover and his refusal to recruit AAU players (things that I’ve been saying for years). There is no shame in not playing the AAU game. Again, for Maryland fans who did not live through probation, being 16-8, 5-5 in the ACC is welcomed over the dregs of not being on television and finishing dead last in the conference. I don’t want AAU players. I don’t think Maryland needs AAU players. Maryland does need to do a better job at locking down local talent, and there is plenty of local talent that doesn’t mess around with the AAU. And I think that was the basic conclusion of the article. Anyway, if you haven’t read it yet, it’s worth the time. It was also great to see the overwhelming majority of Maryland’s fan base come to Gary’s defense at the last two home games. If anyone can mail me a “We ‘heart’ Our Coach” t-shirt it would be greatly appreciated.

Now, at 5-5 in the ACC, things don’t look so bad for Maryland…until you look at the remaining schedule. Maryland has three home games left. They are against UNC, Duke and Wake Forest. Those are all Top 10 teams this week. They still have road games against suddenly feisty NC State and Virginia, and one tonight again another Top 25 team in Clemson. Uh, big thank you to the schedule makers in North Carolina. It’s typical. As a Maryland fan, you get used to the ACC offices screwing your team over. I don’t think there is a school in the nation that has a tougher closing stretch than Maryland does.

Maryland should (heavy emphasis on should) beat NC State and Virginia. Even on the road. The fortunate part about the rest of the schedule being so tough is if Maryland somehow comes up with two other wins, they are basically a lock for the NCAA tournament. Who thought that was a possibility two weeks ago? 9-7 in the ACC, with two late victories against Top 25 teams would make it nearly impossible to keep Maryland out. The problem is obviously finding those two wins.

You would think that one has to come tonight. The Clemson Tigers have been struggling for a better part of a month. After losing their first game of the season to Wake, they’ve been blown out by North Carolina. They’ve lost to Florida State. They struggled in wins against Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech and Boston College. The only complete game they’ve played was their complete beatdown of Duke the other week. All this cumulated with a stunning loss at Virginia on Sunday, which was reminiscent of old-school Oliver Purnell teams.

If the Terps can play like they did against Miami, and like they did against Virginia Tech, they have a chance to beat Clemson. A win puts Maryland at 6-5, ties them with the Tigers, and puts them only ONE GAME out of 2nd place in the ACC. As it is now, after North Carolina at 9-2, there are seven ACC teams within 1.5 games of 2nd place Duke. And 2nd place Duke has lost three of their last four and has looked awful in February (I believe it was me who told you that would happen). So this conference is a long way from being decided.

I don’t think Maryland will win. First of all, Clemson can rotate big men better than any team in the conference. Maryland can’t rotate anyone taller than 6’6” (unless we see more of Steve Goins…hint hint). If the Tigers don’t wax Maryland on the glass in this game, then it’s time to start calling into question Purnell’s job status. Also, the one thing that Maryland does will is press and pressure. However, the Tigers do it better. They are playing a hybrid version of Nolan Richardson’s “40 minutes of hell” and they made a veteran Duke team look like a SEC school the other week. Plus, even though the Tigers strength comes from the inside, K.C. Rivers and Terrance Oglesby are no slouches either. As Maryland found out in awful detail last season, Oglesby can kill you if you leave him alone outside. Finally, their ugly loss to Virginia will almost insure that Clemson won’t take another opponent lightly for another few weeks. That’s a type of loss that can snap a good team out of a funk. The only thing Maryland has on its side is the memory and revenge factor of their come-from-ahead loss last year in College Park. But I don’t see that being enough.

Clemson 83
Maryland 69

ACC Picks:
Florida State 72, Miami 68
Wake Forest 82, Georgia Tech 65
North Carolina 88, NC State 67
Virginia Tech 77, Virginia 72