Mike Burke
Vindication for Gary Williams? Well, his young and beleaguered Maryland Terps haven’t won any titles yet, and they likely won’t — although a first-round West Region win over California tomorrow is possible. For that matter, a win over Memphis in the second round and a berth in the Sweet 16 isn’t out of the complete realm of possibility. It has, after all, happened before in a manner of speaking.
That would have been in 1994 when the 10th-seeded Terps, making their first NCAA tournament appearance in six years, led by an excitable dark-haired coach and a handful of youngsters with names such as Keith Booth, Joe Smith, Johnny Rhodes, Exree Hipp, Mario Lucas and Duane Simpkins, defeated No. 7 St. Louis in the first round of the Midwest Regional, then turned around to stun Marcus Camby and the No. 2 Massachusetts Minutemen, coached by a young John Calipari, who just happens to be the coach of second-seeded Memphis in this year’s West Regional.
So it’s not without some sort of semi-precedence that the 10th-seeded Terps could reach the Sweet 16, but we’re getting way, way, way ahead of ourselves. After all, young as they were in 1994, those guys were Keith Booth, Joe Smith and Johnny Rhodes. If they hadn’t been, then Kurtis Shultz, graciously listed as 6-6, might have played as much as Dave Neal, very graciously listed as 6-7, has played this year.
Look, if Maryland can beat Cal tomorrow, that will be monumental enough, and Gary does have an NCAA tourney track record with Cal coach Mike Montgomery as well, the Terps having beaten Montgomery’s Stanford Cardinal in the 2001 West Region final. But, really, given everything the Terps and their embattled coach have been through this year, this particular Maryland team winning 20 games and reaching the NCAA tournament is monumental in itself.
And speaking of Dave Neal, now suddenly the poster boy for all that is endearing about this Maryland team, remember this time last year? I sure do, because the ACIT was in town, just as it is this weekend, and the Terps found themselves in the NIT for the third time in four years. Maryland supporters, armed with their inherent sense of entitlement, as they always are, were up in arms, and rumors were flying that Neal was going to transfer out for his final year of eligibility and that Dino Gregory was going to transfer to, of all places, Morgan State — a team that now finds itself in the NCAA tournament with a record of 23-11, yet a team bracketologists still insist handed Maryland a “bad loss” back in December.
Fine, let ’em transfer, the cry went. Who needs them? Well, as we found out this year, Maryland needed them as Neal has been the glue that has held this team together, and Gregory slowly but surely shows signs of promise. Both kids are ACIT alumni, Gregory having starred for those record-setting Mount St. Joseph’s teams, and Neal, of Bishop O’Connell, having been (oh, by the way) the tournament MVP in 2005 as O’Connell won the third of its three ACIT titles in a row.
So I asked O’Connell coach Joe Wootten if he knew anything about Neal transferring, and Wootten, along with his wife Terri Lynn, who was standing nearby, excused themselves before answering my question so they could pick up their jaws, which had dropped to the floor upon hearing the question.
Upon collecting themselves, and their jaws, the Woottens both replied that anything was possible, they guessed, but since Neal had all but secured his degree at Maryland, they both doubted very much he would be leaving. But, Joe said, he would let me know if he found out Neal was going anywhere.
One year later, this just in: Dave Neal is going somewhere. He’s going to Kansas City with the rest of his teammates to play in the NCAA tournament — for the second time in three years.
What a difference a year makes. What a difference a month makes. What a difference a week makes. These Terps have crawled out of more caskets than Bela Lugosi — Morgan State, landslide losses at Duke and Clemson, attacks from the media, cowardly attacks from Internet hosers who don’t have to reveal their identities, a loss at Virginia — and the guy who has provided them with the life to do it is the embattled, graying head coach, who, as our favorite Dukie Jay Bilas said on Monday, is “the only guy outside of (the state of North Carolina) that has done anything (in the ACC)” in the last 20 years.
(And, we’d like to add, Maryland has won a national championship since Duke has.)
So is this improbable trip to the NCAA tournament vindication for Gary Williams? Not everybody has forgotten those 20 years, so why should he need vindicated? As he’s likely told his Terps all week, they haven’t won anything yet.
Mike Burke is sports editor of the Cumberland Times-News. Contact Mike Burke at mburke@times-news.com.
