NOTE: This is GITC bet apost that was supossed to appear last Thursday, but for some reason didn’t get up. I’ve added some commenting that will make it a little more accurate.

Here’s the bottom line: I made this bet with Trey that St. Mary’s would make the tournament. The loser had to write a negative post about their own program. This leaves me in an awkward position. I should have won the bet if not for the stupidity of the A10, SEC, and Pac-10 tournaments (Trey Note: There were like 3-4 teams that probably would have been in over St. Mary’s…). Second, Trey’s program has an obvious flaw as they aren’t in the tournament whereas not only are my Maryland Terrapins in the tournament, but they are the only upset (non-difference of 1 – 8/9, 4/5, or 1/2) that America picked in the National Bracket. By the way, I wish the best of luck to them in their game against the University of California, Berkley Golden Bears at 2:55 EST on CBS (Trey Note: They won, but we all know now that the ACC was overrated and that probably got the Terps in the  tourney over the 23-10 Gators…Wake Forest looked awesome against Cleveland State, Maryland must have been great to beat them). I should also wish bad luck to Trey’s Gators as I picked them to lose their 2nd round NIT game to Miami (Trey Note: Which didn’t happen, in fact we dominated another overrated ACC team). Now, on to the bad stuff.

Here’s the major thing that everybody harps on when in comes to the decline of Maryland basketball… recruiting. I have had many discussions on this topic in the last few years. It all starts with the simple fact that Gary Williams refuses to go out and recruit one and done players. While all programs have decided to take those guys on, Gary stayed behind the curve and wants to stick with players that he can have for at least two years. At first, the media gave Gary a ton of credit for the decision. Recently though, they turned their back. After winning a National Championship in 2002, recruiting should have spiked at UMD. That’s not exactly what happened. While the Terps did get Mike Jones (McDonald’s All American and 3-Point champ) and Travis Garrison (Virginia Mr. Basketball), neither panned out. Maryland went into a slight funk. They missed the tournament for the first time in more than a decade. Since then, Gary has been unable to recruit the quality of players that he would have liked.

The other problem with recruiting is that Gary isn’t the type of guy who strolls into the living room of recruit and sweet-talks them. He doesn’t sugar-coat things. That led to Gary delegating his finer recruiting points to his assistant coaches. As most college basketball fans know, long-time assistant coaches are key to the recruiting. This leads to another problem. Maryland isn’t so good at keeping assistant coaches. Many assistants have gone on to lead their own programs and others have been deemed unsatisfactory by Gary. The exception is starting to be Keith Booth. Booth was a former 1st round pick out of Maryland with Gary and recruits Baltimore City very well. He brought Sean Mosley (Baltimore City Player of the Year) to UMD and he has played well in his freshman year. Booth is greeted before every game by the crowd shouting his last name. Hopefully, this can turn the recruiting around.

There isn’t a problem with talent in the area. As I’m sure everyone is aware, Maryland is in the most prosperous basketball talent area of the country. Don’t believe me? There’s research! If Gary could harness the talent in the area it would incredible. Nobody doubts Gary’s coaching ability. He is clearly one of the greatest coaches of all time. To raise the Maryland program from the ashes (NCAA bans from post-season play) to winning a championship, is nothing short of a miracle. To do it all with the talent on the floor was a miracle. The fact that Maryland is competitive in the ACC every year is incredible. It has had the highest conference RPI for, I believe, every year except one in the last ten, and has more incoming McDonald’s All American’s virtually every season as well. Gary barely ever gets those players but competes with them anyway.

All this recruiting talk should be mentioned with the Lance Stephenson Disclaimer. For those who aren’t familiar, Stephenson is a top recruit (Rivals #9, ESPN #8) at shooting guard out of Abraham Lincoln High School in NYC (yes, the one from He Got Game) and is considering attending Maryland. He is likely one and done. Why Maryland then? Well, Gary didn’t really recruit him. He just wanted to play in the ACC and most of the spots were gone. If Wake has enough guys leave they may have a spot but he is said to be
down to Maryland, Kansas, and St. John’s. Kansas made him an offer that clearly involves cash and a ride, his high school teammate and solid recruit, James Padgett, is headed to College Park, or he may want to stay in NYC. If he declares for the Terps after his Championship game next weekend, this section may be a moo point (like a cow’s opinion).

The other problem is the Comcast Center. I hate to say that because as far as college arenas go, Comcast is state of the art. It’s always loud because the student section surrounds the court in the entire lower bowl because Gary insisted upon it. So why is it bad? It isn’t bad if you just walked in, it’s bad compared to Cole Field House. Cole was the old home to Terp basketball until the championship season. For those who have been to Comcast and think it’s loud, Cole could break your eardrums. That place was so loud that you could occasionally feel yourself vibrate during the last four minutes. While it is a minor complaint, I would rather have Cole back. At the very least, I wish Maryland did something where they played one game there per season. It would make some random game special. I should also point out that I loved the history of Cole. DeMatha Catholic beat Power Memorial there in the only game Lew Alcindor ever lost in high school. Texas Western won the National Championship over Kentucky there as they proved basketball should not be a white man’s game. The first televised women’s college game ever was played there. The Terps completed an undefeated season there and won the championship the last season. Oh, and Elvis played there. Gary resisted the move but the Athletic Department overruled him. I sure hope they can win something at Comcast so nobody starts talking about a Comcast Curse or something.

Well, it’s been torture recounting the flaws of the Terp basketball program with you. I hope I win a bet so that Trey has to write one of these about Florida soon…

Guyinthecorner is a Senior Editor here at spartyandfriends.com. He writes the NBA section, X-Games section, and contributes to College Basketball and MLB. He doesn’t watch hockey. He’s not sure how to rate Michael Phelps on the scale of athletes not only because he doesn’t directly compete against people, but because he is a fish. He doesn’t understand the hate for the 2002 National Champion Maryland Terrapins and wishes everybody would just shut up by now. He is known for having statistical formulas and might be Bill James or Joe Lunardi depending on who you ask. His identity is as hidden as many times over as the number of internet memes he employs in his comments. He can be reached at gitc@spartyandfriends.com. “GITC” is an acronym for guyinthecorner in case you aren’t that perceptive.

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