Turtledroppings.com – Maryland Football And Basketball Blog

This is the first part of a two part series where we look at the pro’s and con’s of keeping Gary Williams.  Today’s installment will focus on why Gary needs to stay.  With that, let’s begin.
 
Economic times are tough no doubt about it.  Ironically some of the hardest hit people in this crunch are those who have a lot of money, particularly if that money is being invested.  So occasionally you will hear a story about a millionaire who has had to lay off his butler, or re-think the beach house in Malibu.  It’s enough to break your heart.  Nobody really cares about the problems of the rich and famous, and guess what, when it comes to basketball, that is exactly what we are.  We are complaining about what, not making the tournament?  We are complaining about not being ranked in the top 25?  We’ll guess what, we have made the Final Four TWICE this decade, and even better, we have won a National Championship!  How many of us in the 80′s or 90′s would ever dream of that kind of success?  Not me!
 
Sure things have been tough.  No one wants to see us lose by 40 to Duke.  It is extremely frustrating to see UNC and Duke both continue to reload year after year.  But keep in mind, Gary isn’t operating in a vacuum here.  There are situations, particularly this season where Gary is putting out a team that isn’t exactly the team he built.  It has been talked about to death recently, but if Gary had his way Tyree Evans and Gus Gilchrist would both be contributing heavily to this team.  Now I’m not saying they would make us a top 15-20 team, but they wouldn’t hurt.  Everyone knows Maryland has no big man in the middle but it isn’t because Gary forgot to recruit one! 
 
Which brings us to the next issue.  Everyone is so quick to point out all the recruits that have come from Maryland, but not stuck around to play FOR Maryland.  We’ll that may be the case, but keep in mind, not every kid from Baltimore or DC necessarily wants to play 30 minutes from their house.  Some of them want to be on their own, let’s face it some of them need to get out of the area just to gain some perspective, so for every Baltimore kid who plays elsewhere it isn’t necessarily a snub to Maryland.  And look at some of those kids, particularly Carmelo Anthony.  Had he gone to Maryland, had he played great for one year, and then skipped for the NBA, and had he then shown up in a “Stop Snitching” video, I would bet half the fan base and alumni would be calling for blood asking what kind of program are we turning into? 
 
We loved the 2000-2002 teams.  They were our guys, and with few exceptions led by players no body else really wanted.  That is what made them great.  Sure recruiting 5 McDonalds All Americans and winning a National Championship would be just as great, but that team would NEVER replace the Steve Blake, Juan Dixon, Lonny Baxter era in our hearts.  The point is, we can win with Gary’s recruiting, we HAVE won with Gary’s recruiting.  Like all good teams we have had the misfortune of having some key assistant coaches leave for greener pastures, you can’t blame them, and because of that we sort of keep having to re-establish our recruiting roots during these last few seasons.  Things will turn around, in fact I feel we have a pretty good group of kids coming in next year.  I also think we have some real keepers amongst our younger players. 
 
And finally, please don’t ever forget where this program was when Gary took over.  He came here not fully comprehending the entire situation and the sanctions that the NCAA was about to put us on.  The program was dead for all intensive purposes, and he not only got it breathing again, he made it relevant, and then he made it popular, and finally he made it a Champion.  And it was one hell of a ride.  But now we want to cast him off because of we have only made the tournament once in the past four years?  Don’t get me wrong, no one is happy with that, but to fire Gary for the past 5 years and not take into consideration what happened the 15 prior to that is just short sighted.  Everyone knows Gary is a fighter and a competitor, just give him some more time to turn this thing around.  I think he has deserved at least that.  And this next time when he brings us back from the dead, thanks to all his previous work, the climb won’t have to be nearly as long.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 29th, 2009 at 1:48 pm and is filed under Maryland Terps Basketball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.