March 25, 2006
A Maryland fan watches the NCAAs
One aspect of loyalty to a team is, once your team has gone home, picking other teams to root for through the prism of how they relate to your own favorite.
(In this case, Maryland didn't even MAKE the NCAAs, and stunk so bad in the NIT game a week ago they lost at home.)
So I picked four other teams to root for during March Madness:
- Anyone playing against Duke.
- Boston College (now plays in same league as Maryland, and my father graduated from there). Plus, very impressive to watch. Their dismantling of Maryland in the ACC tournament showed a team of great strength and a professional, businesslike approach to the task.
- Georgetown (like Maryland, in greater D.C. area, and I was born at their hospital).
- George Mason (ditto, another greater D.C. area team, and I saw Duran Duran there a year ago). Like Boston College, they seem to be men playing against boys, with their big power-forward duo of Jai Lewis and Will Thomas.
Georgetown and Boston College lost last night. Duke, wondrously, lost Thursday to LSU. But George Mason keeps rollin' along, brushing away Wichita State like a pesky gnat.
From Liz Clarke's article in the Washington Post:
The Patriots' starting lineup consists of five players from Maryland -- three of them seniors -- and none taller than 6 feet 7. At first blush, that gave the edge to Wichita State.
More on the Maryland connection for George Mason, by Mike Wise:
Lamar [Butler]'s father owns Varsity Sports in Marlow Heights. Coached his son's high school team at Oxon Hill in Fort Washington. Been to all but three Mason games -- home and away -- in five years. The man actually had the Patriots in the Washington Region final of his office pool.The rest of the starters are from Maryland, too -- Skinn from Takoma Park, big Jai Lewis from Aberdeen, Thomas from Baltimore and Silver Spring's own Folarin Campbell.
The real point that no one seems to be addressing here is, why is all this Maryland talent NOT PLAYING at Maryland?
This thought first crossed my mind two years ago, watching U-Conn play in the NCAAs (and win the final). The commentators mentioned that forward Josh Boone was from Mount Airy, Md. What? I thought. Why is he at U-Conn. Paging Gary Williams, how did you miss this smart, athletic player?
The core of the Maryland team that won the national championship in 2002 was two homegrown players, Juan Dixon and Lonnie Baxter, with excellent support from Steve Blake (Florida), Drew Nicholas (New York), Chris Wilcox (North Carolina) and Byron Mouton (Louisiana).
Something went wrong after the 2002 team, with recruits both from Maryland and elsewhere.
When Gary recruited in state (Travis Garrison, Chris McCray, Will Bowers, James Gist, Sterling Ledbetter), he got five kids, none of whom seem the brightest bulbs, especially compared to their counterparts at George Mason.
For the out-of-staters, same story. When you look deep into the eyes of a Mike Jones (Dorchester, Mass.) or a Jamar Smith (Sicklerville, N.J.), it looks like nobody's home. Look at a John Gilchrist (Virginia Beach), and you see a nutcase. You don't see the almost palpable intelligence and edge of the players for Boston College, Carolina or George Mason.
Maryland needs to recruit some thinking players. I hate to cite Duke and its student-athlete model, or the dorky Shane Battier, but at least you see a kind of overall awareness that translates into court smarts when you look at a Battier.
Whereas with Maryland's Chris McCray, he couldn't maintain his academic eligibility even with $12 million of taxpayer-funded help designed expressly to keep him and other Maryland athletes on track for graduation, or at least minimally present for classes.
Juan Dixon has a gritty version of the Battier kind of smarts. Lonnie Baxter seemed to have a different kind of excellence, based on toughness and persistence.
After Maryland won the championship, everyone was giddy about the kind of recruits that the school would now attract. It didn't happen.
Gary needs to take a look at how George Mason flies under the radar with local player recruiting, be less in love with the McDonald's All-Americans, more aware of how much talent is in his home state, and take a good look at the basketball IQs, rather than credentials, of the kids he wants to play at College Park.
Let's get us some smarter players.
PS Isn't it charming how some of the player photos broadcast during the games show them in suits and ties, instead of uniforms? Sends a good message.
March 27 update: Well, well, well, it's the day after George Mason's astounding upset of U-Conn (though maybe not so astounding, the Huskies have always struck me as soft, especially after Maryland's playoff defeat of them in 2002).
And it looks like Maryland's Gary Williams indeed tried to recruit George Mason's Lamar Butler (from Mike Wise today):
Gary Williams contacted him, but Butler felt it was too late in the game."Maryland was my dream school growing up," he said. "Gary Williams talked to my high school coach."
But he ultimately decided, like many of Mason's overlooked kids, "Let me go where I'm wanted and not just be another player on a roster."
Ouch! Maryland really did screw this up.
Oh, and note to the TV announcers on CBS: It's "George Mason," not "Mason." No one knows what you are talking about when you talk about Mason!
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