Maryland Needs a Change

      Gary Williams is the backbone of Maryland Basketball, the man responsible for turning the program around after its collapse in the wake of NCAA violations and Len Bias's death. He's a Hall of Fame coach, the winner of over 600 games, and he's only six years removed from a national championship. Williams is also one of the best in-game coaches I have ever seen; a Williams-coached team is capable of winning any game, on any night, against any team. The problem, though, is that all these factors are adding up to less and less every year and as good a coach as Williams is, it is his own shortcomings that have led to Maryland's decline. It is clear after this season that a change is necessary at the University of Maryland, either in its head coach's philosophy or in its head coach.

     Don't get me wrong. Every program is allowed to lose. It is okay for powerhouse programs to miss the tournament occasionally, to have a few bad recruiting classes, and to drop a few games here and there to inferior teams. It happens. Duke, UNC, and UCLA all have bad years. It's not Maryland's losing that bothers me, though, so much as how we lose. Almost every year, Maryland beats some of the best teams in basketball and loses to some of the worst. We can win. We just don't. The motivation isn't always there, the leadership isn't always there, and the talent isn't always there. This isn't a case of a team having a poor run, but rather a failure of coaching philosophy that has negatively impacted this program. As much as I hate to write this, Maryland has slipped from the league of extraordinary teams.  And it's largely Williams' fault.

     Williams failure comes down to three things: recruitment, character, and motivation.

     Gary Williams is a bad recuiter. Or a lazy one. I'm not really quite sure which one. Either way, Maryland cannot seem to land any star recruits, even when its own back yard is filled with stars like Carmelo Anthony, Rudy Gay, Josh Boone, Jeff Green, Marcus Ginyard, and Roy Hibbert, all of whom went to high school in Maryland. The coach has been vocal in his distaste for one-and-done players, preferring instead to develop incomplete athletes into March heroes. He routinely recruits second- or third-tier high school players or junior college transfers (which has worked well in the case of Bambale Osby) and passes each year on the opportunity to recruit blue chip athletes. "I'd rather have a guy like Juan Dixon than a one-year guy," the coach said in a 2001 ESPN article.  "I enjoy coaching and teaching, but I don't want a Dajuan Wagner in my program for one year...Why not be a coach instead of a used car salesman?" This is an admirable sentiment, for sure, but recruiting top prospects is hardly a bad coaching technique. Wanting to develop inferior players is a great goal for any coach, but recruiting great athletes is a necessity for a top college basketball program. This is the ACC, after all, not the Patriot League. Subpar players can only win at this level if they have great players to play alongside them.

     It seems as if Williams sets out every year to make a sequel to Hoosiers, that he enjoys playing the role of the tough coach who leads an inferior team to greatness. The problem is that not every recruit has the heart and latent ability of Juan Dixon and that bringing in Dixon, Lonny Baxter, and the rest of the 2002 team was like catching lightning in a bottle. For every recruiting class that has Dixon and Baxter, there's another that has Nik Caner-Medley and Travis Garrison. For every bench that has Tahj Holden and Ryan Randle, there's another that has Will Bowers and Dave Neal. If Williams' strategy is to replicate his success in 2001 and 2002, we might be waiting a long, long time to see the Terps raise another banner. At some point, the "I don't want one-and-done players" thing becomes an excuse for poor recruitment, and Williams only has to look at his ACC rivals to know that you need at least some great players to win at this level. Besides, great players don't always leave college after one year. Tyler Hansbrough was supposed to declare for the draft after his freshman season at North Carolina. Now he's in his junior year and is the centerpiece of the NCAA's top-ranked team. If Roy Williams can keep some of his great players around for multiple seasons, there's no reason Gary Williams can't do the same. Instead, he won't even try.

     The character and maturity of the players on Williams teams also leaves a lot to be desired. During my four years at Maryland, several players were arrested or left the team for issues relating to character. Nik Caner-Medley was arrested in the whole "I'm from Maryland, and nobody can beat me!" incident, leading the student body to label him as a "classless thug". Travis Garrison was arrested for sexual assault. John Gilchrist left the team or was booted because of his attitude and Chris McCray flunked out of school mid-season because he didn't have the discipline to go to class. Gary talks at length about "being a coach" but a big part of being a coach is being a teacher. Basketball coaches, unlike their football counterparts, only have a handful of players to look after and are supposed to provide the discipline and guidance to keep these kids out of trouble. Do you think John Wooden's kids would run around breaking the law? Dean Smith's? What do you think Bobby Knight would do if his students weren't going to class? Or would they even dare to skip class for fear of what Knight would do to them? Almost as disappointing is the fact that the graduation rate among Maryland basketball players is routinely last in the ACC and is now last in the entire NCAA. None of the scholarship players that entered school between 1997 and 2000 graduated from the University.

     This brings me to the subject of motivation and on-the-court maturity, of which the Terps routinely have very little. Maryland basketball is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get. Gary Williams' program has become a model of inconsistency, alternating brilliant games of inspired play with zero-effort performances that leave fans annoyed and confused. This season alone, Maryland beat the top-ranked and then-undefeated Tar Heels in one of the hardest fought games I've ever seen the Terps play, but they also lost uninspired contests to bottomfeeders like American University and Ohio University. As the season wound down and the Terps found themselves in the familiar position of having to battle for a tournament berth, they faced two must-win games versus Clemson and Virginia. These were the two worst games I have ever seen this team play, not just because they lost but because they gave the games away. The Terps squandered a twenty-point lead in the second half to Clemson and then with their backs to the wall against Virginia, they all but forgot how to play defense and let the Cavs blow them away by 15. During a timeout, "Bambale Osby grabbed the jerseys of teammates, imploring them to be more aggressive. 'I'm like, 'Man, trip him up, push him, do something, dude,'' Osby said after the game. 'Don't just let him get that, man. The guys' faces were just blank. That's not the response you want, not at this stage of the game.'" Greivis Vasquez, who Williams has failed to control on the court, added, "There was absolutely no effort on defense."

     I don't like losing, but I understand that it happens. What I don't understand is giving up and that's exactly what the Terps did in these two games. When the stakes were the highest and the entire postseason was on the line, Maryland just gave up. That's been the Terps' trademark for the last several years, the ability to lose badly in must-win games. No matter who the players are, no matter who the opponent is, Maryland seems to always collapse down the stretch. A Gary Williams team can win any game, sure, but it can also lose any game. I've waited until late in this piece to say this, but I just can't see a Mike Krzyzewski- or a Roy Williams-coached team giving up in the middle of a critical game. It doesn't happen. Yet every year, Maryland can't get sufficiently pumped up for the most important games of the season. That's a poor reflection of the team's leadership and especially of its coach.

     Williams' recruitment philosophy and lack of leadership have caused Maryland to slip to the middle of the pack in the ACC. Every season has become a quick rush to get an inexperienced squad to gel properly, followed by a few upset wins, a few inexplicable losses, and then a general collapse down the stretch. Even the 2004 campaign looked to have been a complete bust before John Gilchrist turned into a superhero during the ACC Tournament. Williams begins each season in a weak position due to poor recruiting and then fails to keep his team motivated enough to step up when it matters most. Or maybe he pushes them too hard - we've all seen his courtside antics. Either way, he seems to miss the mark when it comes to getting the most out of his team during the point in the season when teams either have to win or go home. The University of Maryland owes everything it has accomplished to Gary Williams, but at some point that fails to be enough to keep him around. The past six seasons have looked remarkably similar to each other and all six teams have suffered from the same symptoms of poor leadership. Maryland owes Gary Williams everything, but it no longer owes him a job. If Gary wants to see another championship banner raised to the rafters of the Comcast Center, he either needs to change his philosophy or make room for a new coach.

Comments

[Mark]

Poor Gary...My freshman year, albeit 6 years ago, we were NCAA champs. And now, 3 of the past 4 years, we didn't make the tourney. It's tough to be a loyal MD fan when the team shows no heart, no chemistry and no improvement from game to game. If Vasquez has it with 15 seconds left at the top of the key...i know he's going to keep dribbling and take an off balance 3 pt shot w/3 seconds left on the shot clock. Where is the damn coaching?! Gary, it's time to start being held accountable - old school recruiting and coaching does not work in this day and age. No more excuses.

[Jerome]

Dave and Mark, I gotta disagree.

There aren't a lot of coaches w/ 600+ wins, a national tourney this decade, an ACC championship this decade, 12 trips to the NCAA in 15 years (in the toughest conference over that time span), and something like the most active wins against a number 1 team. He has a hall of fame resume.

I share the frustrations here, but c'mon. Weren't they a number 4 seed last year in the tourney? The fact that we even define a "bad season" as one where we beat the undefeated #1 team, win 18 games and go 500 in the ACC shows how far Gary has taken the program.

We should demand excellence, but let's put it in perspective of what's humanly possible--and not just as a reaction to one mediocre season. Gary's not faultless in this equation, but we're nowhere near the point of needing him to go--and there aren't a lot of available guys who would be an upgrade.

[Mark]

Jerome, I do share your sentiments on how great of a coach Gary is. What I hope to see is something like a Tom Coughlin - where he changed his approach/attitude. In the 90s and early 2000s, Gary could do things that he just can't do now, in terms of recruiting. The game has changed, and Gary hasn't. This isn't our only "mediocre" season...and the frustration is that, yes, if UMD can beat the undefeated #1 team in the country, something is wrong when the coach can't get his team into the tourney. Bad coaching or motivating, if the talent was there to do it. No discipline out on that court.