Turtledroppings.com – Maryland Football And Basketball Blog

Let me start this whole article by first saying without Gary Williams, we probably wouldn’t have this website.  His rebuilding of the program is one of the things that got me really excited about going to Maryland.  Gary brought the program back from the depths of the ACC and made Maryland Basketball an event.  Maybe that was part of the problem.  In my mind it seems as if success brought on a bit of complacency.   He had worked so hard to get there, and when he finally did, well what else was there to do? 

My first issue with Gary is recruiting.  It is no big secret that Gary loves coaching and teaching basketball.  Infact I would say he does quite well at it.  It is also no secret he does not love recruiting.  We are not Carolina or Duke, and the big time recruits do not fall into our laps year after year.  Gary has always had a preference to win with someone who is going to be there for 4 years.  If I know that, I am sure it gets around the recruiting circles, and doesn’t help his cause.  I don’t know if he put too much of recruiting on the assistants, or what happens, but if you look at some of our recruits it is amazing.  I need to go no further than the fact that we have been piece mealing teams together with junior college tranfers for to long.  Sure it is great to land a Steve Francis when the opportunity presents itself, but we have had class after class that we have needed to hit the jc trail just to help with recruiting down falls.  Maybe some years we have waited too long for one player to commit(Rudy Gay).  When he commits else where, we have lost out on several other players that maybe were interested in playing at Maryland (Joakim Noah).   So we then turn to the junior colleges to see who is available.  Our list after Steve Francis includes:  Ryan Randal, Jamar Smith, Sterling Ledbetter, Parish Brown, Boom Osby, and an attempt at Tyree Evans who commited, only to not get in after a long public snit between Gary and Debbie Yow.  Randal, Smith, and Osby all had serviceable senior seasons and played well, but we shouldn’t have to rely on JC transfers all the time.  When I looked up our JC players I figured out why we needed so many, and this again go back to recruiting/talent evaluation.  Year after year we have players come in, only to find out they are not ACC caliber.   We have become a feeder school to Loyola.  It started with Andre Collins, and Hasan Fofana.  Shane Walker left after last season, and the list goes back as far as Kelly Hite, and would have included Tamir Goodman, but we pulled the plug on his scholly before he ever stepped foot on campus.   Our biggest recruit was Keith Booth.   That put the conference on alert that Maryland was able to get the big time recruits.  But we never really did.  The other high school all-americans we got never panned out.  Danny Miller transferred, Travis Garrison was more suited as 3, and we tried to force him down low.  Mike Jones, appeared to get into the dog house, only to finally see some of his potential his senior year.  What might we have seen had he found his way on the floor earlier? 

I have no problem with the game plans Gary uses, but more his substitution patterns.  Up until this year, even when the cards are stacked against the Terps, he has found a plan that allows them to compete and sometimes beat better teams.  I know he makes subs to make a point (usually after a defensive breakdown), but how many times did he pull out a red hot shooter, just because he let his man get past him?  Defense is important, but so is offense, and if you have someone who is playing well, coach them after they cool down or need a breather.  Mike Jones pops into my head a lot here.

I really think he let the National Championship and all the momentum of the new Comcast Center go by with out taking advantage.  It is hard to say that we should have instantly become perennial contenders to win it all, but we certainly should think we should have been one of the 65 teams invited to try for most of the years after that title.  The class that included McCray, Gilchrist, and Caner-Medley was a good one, but they were signed before we won it all.  Those following classes have been some big misses. 

Then finally Gary is stubborn.  It is a double edged sword.  It is part of what made him great, but at the same time he doesn’t like to change.  It is apparent that the recruiting game has changed.   The players are me first, and Gary doesn’t play any games.  He doesn’t kiss anyone’s butt.  He has his ways and if you can’t deal with that, then you aren’t going to play for him, no matter how good you are.  Times have changed, players have changed, our coach needs to adapt to these things, and he hasn’t.

Now we have this public feud between Gary and Debbie.  It has never been a big secret that they haven’t gotten along, but the finger pointing is not going to benefit anyone.  I may be reading it wrong, but I am interpreting as Gary making excuses for why we don’t have certain players.  Maybe he is using it as motivation.   He loves the everyone is against us motto, and he is starting to get his way more than ever.   Fans are not happy, every journalist in the area seems to think it is time for a change. 

I have always said Gary can stay as long as he wants.  While I was saying that, these are tnot he types of teams, and finger pointing I expected from him.  I have always been pro-Gary.  Everyone wanted him gone when all we could do was “get to the sweet 16″.  I always wanted to see him stay and finish what he had built from the ashes.  However, I am affraid he is starting a fire that may turn everything to ashes again.  Again, I would love to see Gary fix everything.  I am grateful for the 20 years of wonderful memories he brought to my life.  I am thankful for the way he has been an ambassador to my alma matter.  That being said, sometimes change does everyone good.  Time to name the court after him and move on.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 30th, 2009 at 12:31 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.