BaltimoreTerp
03-12-2008, 04:54 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/11/AR2008031103341.html
Selected passages:
Now, there are two coaches in the ACC -- maybe a handful in the country, including Jim Boeheim -- who can keep their jobs by going to the NIT three times in four years: Mike Krzyzewski and Gary Williams. That's it. Roy Williams does not yet have that body of work at North Carolina.
No one else has more longevity or built up more of a reservoir of goodwill than two of the most accomplished coaches in major college basketball. Coach K for winning three national championships and continually keeping Duke among the premier programs in the country and Williams for resurrecting Maryland from the ashes of Len Bias and probation, winning a title in 2002 and going to the Final Four twice this decade.
So save the "Fall of Garyland" rant for someone more gullible and reactionary. If it's Gary Williams's job you're after, find an online support community that will listen. There are only deaf ears here.
Now, if you want to argue why Williams has not recruited well lately or wonder why he gives mercurial sophomore guard Greivis Vasquez such a long leash, go ahead. If you want to judge him solely on his team's accomplishments since 2002 and exclude where the Terrapins came from in the previous decade, that's your prerogative.
Look, Williams created a monster that came back to bite him. He raised expectations, not just by competing with Duke and North Carolina but beating Tobacco Road schools regularly while becoming the first ACC coach to take a non-Carolina school to a national championship. His last Sweet 16 appearance was 2003, when Maryland was a shot away from the round of eight. But he's somehow gotten two teams to peak at the end of the season in the past five years and taken the region on a wild ride through March. In the two years the Terrapins did not advance, they finished with no fewer than 19 wins.
...
The reason Vasquez does not have a better supporting cast is because the recruiting landscape has changed for the worse since Williams took over Maryland almost two decades ago. It's tougher, dirtier and it involves cozying up and developing relationships with people who are less concerned with the welfare of a kid and more concerned about whether they can get paid for delivering talent.
For all the concern about Williams graduating his players, he has never had a whiff of an NCAA violation.
Not every diamond found in the rough can be polished in to Juan Dixon. Williams is not in the running for Duke's and North Carolina's players -- he never was -- but he knows he has to put more horses on the floor in the next few years. Asked if he realized the restlessness among Maryland fans, he shook his head.
"This decade, from 2001 to 2008, we have done as much as any team in the country," he said. "So who is restless? You? On the Internet? You think I worry about that? No. I don't. I know what I do. I know what I have done this year, how hard I worked. That is what keeps you going if you are in coaching a long time."
...
"You judge yourself honestly at the end of every year," he said. "This year is not over yet. But when you do, you look at it a little differently than some people. I have had years where, for example, Steve Francis's year [1998-99], I think we won 28, lost to St. John's with Ron Artest and Erick Barkley in the NCAA tournament.
"I didn't think I did a good job that year. I thought we were good enough to go to the Final Four that year. So you criticize yourself internally for that. Then there are other years when we had sanctions against us that I thought I did as good a job as when we won the national championship. It is not wins and losses when you judge yourself as a coach. A lot of times it is wins and losses when people judge you."
Gary Williams does not get a free pass until he retires, but he has earned the right to take longer to fix the problem. Nineteen years after he took on an impossible job, no matter what happens this weekend in Charlotte, Maryland's coach is due a different level of consideration.
Could a sportswriter be more exactly right? :p
Selected passages:
Now, there are two coaches in the ACC -- maybe a handful in the country, including Jim Boeheim -- who can keep their jobs by going to the NIT three times in four years: Mike Krzyzewski and Gary Williams. That's it. Roy Williams does not yet have that body of work at North Carolina.
No one else has more longevity or built up more of a reservoir of goodwill than two of the most accomplished coaches in major college basketball. Coach K for winning three national championships and continually keeping Duke among the premier programs in the country and Williams for resurrecting Maryland from the ashes of Len Bias and probation, winning a title in 2002 and going to the Final Four twice this decade.
So save the "Fall of Garyland" rant for someone more gullible and reactionary. If it's Gary Williams's job you're after, find an online support community that will listen. There are only deaf ears here.
Now, if you want to argue why Williams has not recruited well lately or wonder why he gives mercurial sophomore guard Greivis Vasquez such a long leash, go ahead. If you want to judge him solely on his team's accomplishments since 2002 and exclude where the Terrapins came from in the previous decade, that's your prerogative.
Look, Williams created a monster that came back to bite him. He raised expectations, not just by competing with Duke and North Carolina but beating Tobacco Road schools regularly while becoming the first ACC coach to take a non-Carolina school to a national championship. His last Sweet 16 appearance was 2003, when Maryland was a shot away from the round of eight. But he's somehow gotten two teams to peak at the end of the season in the past five years and taken the region on a wild ride through March. In the two years the Terrapins did not advance, they finished with no fewer than 19 wins.
...
The reason Vasquez does not have a better supporting cast is because the recruiting landscape has changed for the worse since Williams took over Maryland almost two decades ago. It's tougher, dirtier and it involves cozying up and developing relationships with people who are less concerned with the welfare of a kid and more concerned about whether they can get paid for delivering talent.
For all the concern about Williams graduating his players, he has never had a whiff of an NCAA violation.
Not every diamond found in the rough can be polished in to Juan Dixon. Williams is not in the running for Duke's and North Carolina's players -- he never was -- but he knows he has to put more horses on the floor in the next few years. Asked if he realized the restlessness among Maryland fans, he shook his head.
"This decade, from 2001 to 2008, we have done as much as any team in the country," he said. "So who is restless? You? On the Internet? You think I worry about that? No. I don't. I know what I do. I know what I have done this year, how hard I worked. That is what keeps you going if you are in coaching a long time."
...
"You judge yourself honestly at the end of every year," he said. "This year is not over yet. But when you do, you look at it a little differently than some people. I have had years where, for example, Steve Francis's year [1998-99], I think we won 28, lost to St. John's with Ron Artest and Erick Barkley in the NCAA tournament.
"I didn't think I did a good job that year. I thought we were good enough to go to the Final Four that year. So you criticize yourself internally for that. Then there are other years when we had sanctions against us that I thought I did as good a job as when we won the national championship. It is not wins and losses when you judge yourself as a coach. A lot of times it is wins and losses when people judge you."
Gary Williams does not get a free pass until he retires, but he has earned the right to take longer to fix the problem. Nineteen years after he took on an impossible job, no matter what happens this weekend in Charlotte, Maryland's coach is due a different level of consideration.
Could a sportswriter be more exactly right? :p