Maryland Basketball: Chairman Yow

Clemson Tigers (19-7, 7-5 ACC) vs
Maryland Terrapins (19-7, 9-3 ACC)
Comcast Center – College Park, MD

Imagine what would happen if Cliff Tucker played more than nine minutes a game. Maybe next time Maryland wouldn’t need a buzzer beater to win.

Make no mistake about it, that was a very exciting game against a very good Georgia Tech team. I had been wondering all season when Paul Hewitt would start forcing his guards to get the ball inside. The Jackets had yet to do it all season. Until Saturday. Hewitt finally went with the smart game plan, and probably should have won the game. Unless Maryland runs into Tech in the ACC Tournament, Saturday will thankfully be the last time any of us have to see Derrick Favors. I lost count of how many times Dino Gregory and Landon Milbourne failed to find Favors and box him out, but his 21 points and 18 REBOUNDS (nine offensive, but it felt like more) suggest several occasions.

That’s about as well played a game as you will see in college basketball. Both teams went to their strengths down the stretch, and despite decent defense, neither squad could get a stop when it needed it the most. Maryland just happened to have the last shot…or two. By the way, I think it’s been made pretty public but in case you missed, Gary Williams did not call the timeout before Greivis Vasquez’s non-game winner. It was Keith Booth. I can almost guarantee that Gary "fired" him (as Gary is infamous for doing...ask Jimmy Patsos how many times he was fired over the course of a bad game) during the subsequent timeout. Luckily for Keith, Tucker bailed him out. And for the record, the referees blew that call. The only people who can call a timeout are the five players on the court or the head coach. Booth doesn’t qualify under either of those categories. The timeout should never have been awarded. That’s a pretty old rule too. But I wouldn’t expect Mike Eades and company to remember that. I wouldn’t expect Eades to remember how to dress himself. Maryland was just fortunate enough to get a few extra tenths on the clock before play resumed.

So kudos to Cliff Tucker for stepping up and drilling a big shot. It’s not only an important win for Maryland, it’s an important basket for Tucker. The roller-coaster ride he and his playing time take on a weekly basis makes it impossible for him to get in any rhythm. Hopefully a shot like that helps gives him confidence. Hopefully a shot like that gives him a little more playing time. If you bail out the team and your assistant coach, you should be given a few extra minutes a game. I don’t know how many different ways I can beg to see more of Tucker, so maybe that shot did the trick. Also kudos to Gary. It was a brilliant call. Everyone and their mother expected Vasquez to take the shot. That included Hewitt and Georgia Tech. Gary used Vasquez as a decoy and two Tech defenders were taken completely out of the play as a result.

You would think that with three wins over the course of six days would get Maryland into the polls. You’d be wrong. As I say at least two or three times every year, I really don’t care too much about the rankings. ESPN’s poll is a joke that the network uses to overrate teams that are going to be on their air. The AP poll is a little better, but it’s still constructed by writers who probably haven’t seen half the teams they’re ranking. Regardless, Maryland’s absence from the polls shows how meaningless they truly are. Georgetown is currently 19-7. That’s the same record as Maryland. They are #11 in the AP. Eleventh-ranked! I know they’ve played one of the tougher schedules in the country (compared to Maryland, which still has played a very respectable 30th). They also own losses to South Florida and Rutgers (110th in the RPI). They beat Louisville last night, but they hadn’t won for almost two weeks before that. So if Georgetown can scam the voters for an 11th ranking, are you telling me that Maryland couldn’t be squeezed somewhere in between 20 and 25? By the way, good to see Northern Iowa is in the polls over Maryland. That loss last night to RPI-275th ranked Evansville sure was tough. Almost as bad as their loss earlier this month to Bradley. Or the one earlier this season to DePaul. What a farce.

Speaking of farces, how about the Maryland athletic director? That’s right, I promised all season I would do a brief write-up of how Debbie Yow is screwing up the athletic department. And since Maryland already played Clemson this season, this will be the post. Yow has been the AD at Maryland since 1994. During her tenure, the Maryland athletic department as a whole has won 18 national championships. She reduced the debt that the department owed to nearly nothing. However, since the early part of the last decade, things have started to go horribly wrong for Maryland athletics. And for at least the past five to seven years, Yow has been scheming to get rid of Gary.

Gary and Yow had a decent relationship up until the point that Maryland won their national championship in basketball. Yow knew that Gary would rightfully get most of the credit, but she wanted some herself. However, all the media attention focused on Gary Williams building the program back up from nothing. Very little was written about Yow. The current feud between the two originates from that. She feels she wasn’t given enough credit for turning the program around. Or put it another way…Maryland has 27 programs; Yow has hired the head coach for 26 of those teams at one point or another. Obviously the only one she has had no influence on is men’s basketball. For all intents and purposes, men’s basketball (not football) is the premier sport at Maryland. This rift is all about power and media attention. Yow wants credit, Yow wants power and Gary has basically told her to go fuck off.

So Yow has tried several methods to get rid of him. She’s not stupid; she knows she simply can’t fire Gary for personal reasons. The media and fan base would eat her alive. The first attempt to get rid of Gary was after the back-to-back poor seasons of 2005 and 2006. Maryland missed the tournament both years. The honeymoon period for the championship was over. Suddenly a story floated in to the Washington Post. According to “sources” in the athletic department, there was internal discussion about replacing Williams. Obviously there’s no way to prove it, but chances are the “sources” were one of Yow’s flunkies or Yow herself. There was severe backlash to the story and nothing ever came of it. It was merely a way for Yow to dip her foot in the water to test the temperature. She gauged the reaction of the fan base, and backed off. She realized she’d have to try another approach.

It became clear to her that there were only two ways to get rid of Gary. The first was hoping that the basketball team would go on a prolonged tournament drought. The second was getting fan opinion on her side by painting Gary as a bad guy. Immediately after the ’05 and ’06 seasons, Yow attempted to succeed at the first theory.

Over the last few years, Yow has systematically gone out of her way to nix every borderline recruit that Gary has tried to bring to Maryland. Shane Clark was the first. Clark’s eligibility was up for debate at the NCAA Clearinghouse. Williams went to bat for Clark. Yow and the department did not. Clark was denied admission to the university before school started (but after he had already moved in to the dorms…I saw him moving in with my very own eyes) and before the Clearinghouse ruled on him. Nonetheless, the Clearinghouse, which had originally declared Clark ineligible, reversed course and granted him eligibility. Clark went on to Villanova (a pretty good academic school), had no academic problems and helped make the Wildcats a powerhouse.

Gus Gilchrist was the next player to cross Yow’s path. Gilchrist had committed to Virginia Tech, but wanted out after the April 2007 massacre. The ACC and Tech granted him his wish, but told him that he’d have to sit out an entire season (which is typical) while losing that year of eligibility (which is not). Despite that, Gilchrist still wanted to come to Maryland. But the admissions office, with Yow’s assistance, didn’t allow Gilchrist to enroll until the fall. That meant that Gilchrist would not only have to sit out the 07-08 season, he’d have to sit out the first semester of the 08-09 season AND surrender a second year of eligibility. Gilchrist wisely chose not to do that. South Florida had no problems enrolling Gilchrist in the spring of 07, and he’s been a valuable contributor to the Bulls despite his recent injuries.

Bobby Maze was trying to transfer from junior college to a big time program in the spring of 07. The Suitland native was absolutely in love with Maryland. He even signed up for the message boards and talked to some of the more die-hard Terps fans. Right before becoming eligible, Maze’s grades were suddenly up for question. Again, Williams went to bat for Maze. The athletic department did not. A story broke, first on Terrapin Times, then on mainstream newspapers, that Maryland was going to deny Maze admission. The information came from a “source” within the athletic department. The story was printed before ANYONE, including Gary and Maze himself, knew that Maze wouldn’t be getting in to the school. Instead of smoothing things over or appealing the ruling, Maze was infuriated and decided to enroll at Tennessee. In his two seasons at UT, there hasn’t been whiff of academic trouble for Maze, and he currently averages 25 minutes a game and a 3/1 assist/turnover ratio for a ranked Volunteers team.

Futhermore, to help hurt the team, Yow “balanced” the budget in strange ways. With the state of Maryland, and the nation mired in a recession, cuts were coming to the university and athletic department. That’s hardly Yow’s fault. Yow decided to cut the budgets for each non-revenue sport by about 9%. She decided to cut the budgets for football and men’s basketball by about 5%. Again, no problem yet. Fair is fair. Everyone has to tighten up the belt sometimes. However, Yow cut the budget of the women’s basketball team by less than 3%. Everyone knows how chummy Yow and Brenda Frese are. Yow views Frese as her prized hire. Yow got plenty of credit for the women’s championship in 2006 and for hiring Frese in the first place. Yow also has strong ties to women’s basketball, being the younger sister of Kay Yow. But to protect women’s basketball while every other program gets cut by at least 5%? There’s no excuse for it. Are the women selling out their games? No. Are the women bringing in substantial income to department and university? No. Could fans even tell you half of the players on the women’s team? No. I have no problem with women’s sports, but they don’t run the athletic program financially. Until the women consistently sell out their games like the men, they should be treated like a non-revenue sport. If football and men’s basketball bring in the majority of the cash, that’s where the majority of the athletic budget should go.

So after somewhat succeeding with the first part of Operation Fire Gary, Yow sneakily went about the second part: getting the public on her side. As most know by now, Kay Yow tragically died of cancer last year. While at her sister’s funeral, Yow sent associate AD Kathy Worthington after Gary Williams. Worthington attacked earlier made comments from Gary about the unwillingness of the department to help get Maze and Tyree Evans in to school. Yow made Worthington do this knowing it would provoke the usually combustible Gary…and since she was at her sister’s funeral, Yow would theoretically get the sympathy vote from the public. Sure enough, Worthington’s comments did indeed provoke Gary in to this now famous quote:

"Kathy Worthington doesn't speak for me. She has never won a national championship. She has never done anything. She is an associate AD.”

"Why do they jump on me all the time?" Williams said of school officials. "It's somebody else's call. Who said University of Maryland's call? Nobody. Why can't I say that? This is just giving you guys stuff to make me look bad."

Because Gary was able to read through the B.S. He knew that Yow was behind this, and with his quote, avoided awarding public opinion to Yow. Gary called her bluff, and Yow was forced to come back from Kay’s funeral and issue a statement of support for Williams. The plan didn’t entirely backfire on Yow (since the blame was thrown on Worthington), but it didn’t work either. The fact that Yow used her sister’s funeral as a part of a plan to get rid of her popular head coach is just sickening.

So that’s where we are now. Yow has attempted to take on Gary Williams several times, and it hasn’t worked yet. This season gives Gary room to breathe, since Maryland SHOULD make the tournament with relative ease (knock on wood, knock on wood). With the loss of Vasquez next season, and the loss of recruit Terrence Jones (not Yow’s fault), it should be very interesting to see what happens in 2011 for Gary. On the other hand, Yow can’t afford a slipup. For some insane reason, she gave Ralph Friedgen another season to turn around the football team. That was very unpopular among Maryland fans. All these fights with Williams have proven one thing: that the majority of the fan base is firmly behind Gary and more and more fans are starting to become anti-Yow. The Chairman Yao nickname is rapidly becoming more popular and more appropriate. Also, university president (and Yow’s boss) Dan Mote is stepping down after this academic year. Mote has played middle-man between Yow and Gary for the last few years. He was a big supporter of both of them. So will the new president be so kind to Yow? Or will he/she see that all the good Yow did in the 90’s was quickly undone with bad budget decisions and bad public relations in the 00’s? Anyway, that’s my beef with Yow. She’s done some good for the university, but remember, she’s trying her best to get rid of Gary without it becoming a P.R. nightmare.

To the game tonight, I don’t think Maryland’s going to have another 26-turnover performance against Clemson. Despite those turnovers, Maryland was in the game the entire way and probably should have won. Even with Demontez Stitt back, there’s no way Clemson will force the Terps out of their game like they did in January. I expect Oliver Purnell to press again, but I also expect the Terps to be prepared for it this time. I’m not all that worried about Trevor Booker, but someone does have to box out Jerai Grant this time. Clemson, like every other ACC team, has struggled on the road this season. And if you haven’t been paying attention, Maryland is 6-0 at Comcast against the ACC (I know they needed the buzzer beater, but good teams find ways to win) and plays infinitely better at home than most in the conference. It’s also late-February, and this is right about the time the Tigers have taken nose dives in previous seasons. It will probably be close, but I think Maryland will do a better job protecting the basketball and won’t score only 53 points.

Maryland 76
Clemson 70


Elsewhere in the ACC…

I was 3-2 during the weekend so I’m 38-14 overall.

Virginia Tech at Boston College
Call it a Dook-hangover for Virginia Tech or a better-than-their-record indicates Boston College team that usually plays well at home…just don’t call it an upset.
Pick: Boston College 68, Virginia Tech 65

Florida State at North Carolina
UNC gave no effort in either of their road games against Georgia Tech or BC. There’s no reason to think they’ll give any against an FSU team that is still desperate for a couple more wins.
Pick: Florida State 80, North Carolina 67