Another NIT

I really hope that Gary Williams is planning his retirement.

Now longtime readers and friends of the blog will know that I've said things like that before. Most of them, however, have been in the heat of battle when I'm prone to hyperbole. Few things cause me to get madder than a bad Maryland loss (as if there is any other kind) so I'll often vent my frustrations to avoid a stroke. But this isn't the same. I'm not mad, nor was I mad after the UNC embarrassment. I'm indifferent. Considering that I've been a "watch every game" type of fan since I was about six, that's not good.

At this point it's tiresome to constantly hope that we don't get relegated to the NIT (this will be 4 times in 7 years, for those counting, with one of the other three seasons having us sweating until Selection Sunday). We can talk about the recruiting missteps, as there are and continue to be plenty, but even worse are the coaching gaffes and lack of player development from a coach that has been so good at those things in the past.

The amount of zone defense played tonight was outright laughable. Zone works well if you're Syracuse and drill it into your kids' heads from the time they step onto the campus. It works as a change of pace to confuse poorly coached teams. It works when you have key guys out of the game and need to work around matchup problems. Here's when it doesn't work. It doesn't work when you play 90% man-to-man defense ordinarily and then decide to throw a zone at a team that both makes and shoots a large, large number of three point shots. It's beyond baffling that this simple fact wasn't figured out by our HOF coach until Miami had rained in a dozen threes on just over 20 attempts. That certainly wasn't our only reason for losing (Stoglin had even less help than usual on offfense tonight), but it's frustrating when the coach can't see what the fans at home can see.

As for player development, the upperclassmen in the backcourt have all regressed. Sean Mosley was a much, much better player (a very good starter) at the end of his freshman year and into his sophomore year. Now he's a poor decision maker who rarely seems to score outside of five feet. Cliff Tucker was once an enigmatic scorer who could do a lot of different things off the bench. After a great start to his senior season, he seems completely disinterested and unable to do much of anything besides make mistakes. Even Adrian Bowie who started for most of the season two years ago, is at best inconsistent and certainly no better than he was during the past two years. Sure, Dino Gregory has developed, and Jordan Williams has been fantastic in his two years here, but the success ratio is well down from what Gary did with Juan Dixon or even Obinna Ekezie.

So now Maryland is 7-8 in a weak ACC, despite having a sophomore averaging 17 and 12 and a freshman who will have a legitimate shot to break the school's all-time scoring record. Perhaps the most frustrating part in re: recruiting is that we HAVE recruited some high level players over the past half dozens season (Vasquez, Stoglin, Williams), but simply haven't been able to put together any kind of a solid supporting cast. That should be the easy part, but when the head coach puts so little effort into recruiting and doesn't regularly go to scout players during the season, it's hard to put together a strong roster.

It's depressing to think that less than ten years after scoring a national title, back-to-back final fours, and building a beautiful new arena, we're going to be relegated to a postseason that will start with a showdown against Drexel before 4,000 fans at the Comcast Center.

I can only hope that Gary will begin to reevaluate his future in coaching. I would never, ever seriously want him to be fired. He means far too much not only to the basketball program but to the school at home to be treated with anything other than respect. Be that as it may, the basketball program is not reaching its full potential, and loyalty to the university eventually trumps loyalty to the coach. We are capable of much, much better, and I simply cannot imagine that Gary, who will turn 66 on Friday, is the man to provide it.