Another Williams in the ACC

At least another ROY Williams protege as Maryland hired Mark Turgeon to succeed recently retired legend GARY Williams. 

I think Maryland got this one right, and not just because Turgeon is a former Kansas player and assistant to both 'ol Roy and Larry Brown.  He seems to be the kind of hard working young coach who has recruited and won at places - Wichita and College Station - that are challenging locales.  And though he is relatively young, 46, he has a long track record at two biggish schools (Wichita State and Texas A&M) unlike recent ACC hires like Dave Leito, Tony Bennett, or Frank Haith.

In general there seems to have been a nice upgrade in the ACC coaching ranks, with Brad Brownell at Clemson, Brian Gregory at Georgia Tech, and now Turgeon; I'm not as crazy about Wake's coach or Mark Gottfried at State or hiring a 62-year old Jim Larranga at the U).

One last thing.  In today's Post Mike Wise thinks hiring Turgeon is settling on someone not named Jay Wright (one final four though good looking), Jamie Dixon (zero final fours but also good looking) or Sean Miller (no final fours).  His column is another reminder how reading that guy is a waste of time.

The Post sports page is transitioning, with no more Kornheiser or Wilbon but it still - thankfully - has a still excellent Tom Boswell - and The Slouch on Monday!  Jason Reid, a former Dodgers beat writer, has been a great addition but Wise generally stinks while excelling at writing smug and self conscious columns that generally lack insight or wit, and stay with you for as long as it takes to recycle the paper. 

Back to Gary Williams

The retirement of Gary Williams was ALMOST as big a story in DC as was the killing of Osama bin Laden.  In fact, it may have been more bipartisan, since Williams was a fairly well known Republican and is friends with former Republican Maryland governor Bob Ehrlich, and Republicans hated giving the President credit for bringing bin Laden to justice.

Even if he is a Republican, one has to respect Gary Williams' career at Maryland.  It's easy to forget how bad Maryland basketball was when Williams took over his alma mater's basketball program.  Not only did Williams come back to a school that was on probation and was still haunted by the 1984 cocaine death of Len Bias, he gave up a choice job at a big time school, the Ohio State University.  

He loved Maryland enough to leave a school most coaches would dream of retiring from to take over a program in the toilet.  Have to respect that kind of loyalty and - though it's a cliche - school spirit.

And you have to respect - maybe not agree but respect - his stubborn refusal to recruit kids associated with AAU teams, posses, and hangers on.  Instead of pursuing local superstars like Kevin Durant, Rudy Gay and Ty Lawson (just 3 of the great local players who grew up within 20 minutes of College Park) Williams favored 'coaching up' non-blue chip players like Juan Dixon and Lonnie Baxter, guys who won him  and his school a national championship in 2002.  

In retrospect, Williams probably should have recruited more kids like Durant and Lawson, two generally modest kids (unlike Gay, who played for an almost notorious AAU team in high school) instead of relying on developing diamonds in the rough like Dixon.  After all, a reliance on those players resulted in Maryland falling on semi-hard times since 2002, missing the NCAA tournament more times than they made it since winning it all. 

But we're quibbling now.  Williams left a great job to rescue his alma mater's basketball program, and though he didn't turn College Park in the "UCLA of the East" he did win a national championship while doing it his way.  Not a bad summation of any career.

A few more hoops notes

One notable player Williams developed was Drew Nicholas, a reserve on the 2002 team and a second-team All-ACC player his senior year in College Park.  Over the weekend Nicholas helped lead Greek-favorite team Panathinaikos to the 2011 Euroleague championship over Maccabi of Israel.  It was Pana's sixth Euroleague title, signifying the best professional team on the Continent, and third in the last 5 years.

The 'Octopus Man,' Dimitri Diamantidis,  was named both the Euroleague AND Euroleague Final Four most valuable player.  Diamantidis had double-doubles in both of Panathinaikos' final four wins over the weekend.   He's now in his late 20s, but of all the modern Greek basketball players he would have been a good-to-great NBA player.  Diamantidis is a long, athletic player and can run the point and hit some threes, but who would have made his mark in the League as a defender, kind of a Hellenic Stacey Augman or James Posey or Luol Deng.

Nicholas scored 14 points and led an 11-3 run in the third quarter to give the Greens a lead they would not relinquish on their way to the title.   Panathinaikos was lead by Mike Batiste's 17 points; Batiste played at Arizona State and had a cup of coffee with the Memphis Grizzlies before landing in Greece.

Another former Grizzlies player, Antonis Fotsis, had a nice game including a nasty dunk during the Nicholas-led run in the third.  I wish Fotsis had staying in the League more than one year; athletically he could have stuck around but he has thrived in Athens with Panathinaikos - and has won three championships there.

Of course, who currently plays for the Grizzlies?  Greivis Vasquez, a gritty and under-talented high school player who went on to win ACC player of the year, a non-blue chip player currently earning a living hooping it up in the NBA playoffs, developed by Gary Williams.

Quick ACC blog

Interesting games last night in the ACC.  


The marquee game was Duke at Maryland.  I'm not a big General Greivis fan but late in the game, after Duke had asserted itself and taken a second-half lead, he made play after play to lead the Terps to their 12th win in the conference.  


Gary Williams has a right to feel pretty smug.  Two seasons after alums were screaming for his firing and the Post ran a 5-part series about how far Maryland has fallen he's got a team that looks average on paper (of course, games aren't played on paper, they're played on ESPN) in first place in the ACC.  It's easy to forgot how much success he's had in College Park.  


If Carolina doesn't win the ACC tournament I won't mind rooting for Maryland in the NCAA tournament.


Duke, on the other had, seems poised for yet another late season swoon, one I hope picks up momentum on Saturday night against the Heels. One weird feature of Duke basketball lately - since the Shane Battier-Jason Williams juggernaut - has been Krzyzewski's inability to develop any quality depth. As a result Duke teams of recent years always look gassed late in the year.


That seemed to be on display late in the game versus Maryland, where John Scheyer and Nolan Smith missed open shots that they had knocked down earlier in the game. Despite having decent size - Lance Thomas, Brian Zoubek and not one but TWO Plumlees - the Blue Devils continue to be a jump-shooting team. And if you have tired legs it's hard to be a good jump shooting team. 


The Plumlees, who seem to be athletic and skilled, only played 22 minutes last night. Seems like you should give them, and back-up point guard Andre Dawkins, more time especially when you consider that Singler played 40 minutes and Scheyer and Smith each played 38.  


Finally, one underreported story that obviously hurts Duke's depth has been the number of transfers lately. I'm assuming most of those are due to Krzyzewski being a demanding task master.  Just in the last 2 seasons Duke has lost 3 players - Elliott Williams (Memphis), Taylor King (Villanova) and Firstname Thompson (Northwestern) - who are contributing at schools playing big time college basketball.


ACCents:

• Add my voice to the chorus of critics who think football-driven expansion has hurt ACC basketball. Last night fewer than 4,000 fans showed up for Virginia's game at Boston College. It was spring break and Boston is a pro-sports town, but still, 4,000 fans?  BC should not be in the ACC.
• Miami made more sense in that the conference already had one Florida member, but they continue to draw flies for basketball, both in Coral Gables and on the road. Miami's game in Chapel Hill was not a sell. That's not the U's fault, but they do not generate ANY basketball buzz and probably never will.
• The only school that made sense to add was Virginia Tech. A geographic fit, natural rival for Virginia, and they have a hoops fan base. Last night they had a sell out for NC State, and almost all the fans stuck around last weekend when a water main break delayed the start of their game versus Maryland by 3 hours. 

Maryland and ACC Basketball

The excellent and even-handed three-part series on the current state of Maryland basketball concluded today in the Washington Post.

It mainly focused on the way Gary Williams recruits with particular focus on Rudy Gay, and other local recruits who got away, and the AAU circuit.  The series concludes by theorizing that Maryland is so desperate to get back to the NCAA tournament that the Terps are willing to relax their usual high standards to lure talented players with considerable baggage to College Park.  

The series is generally sympathetic to Williams and touts his ethical recruiting (while leaving out his spotty graduation record). It's very well done and worth reading for any basketball fan.

I don't have anything to add really, other than it's odd to see Williams and the Maryland program in the doldrums. 

Ever since Phil Ford chose Carolina over Maryland the Tar Heels have been the gold standard in the ACC and the nation. Granted, the Doherty years were a major blow to the program's luster, but even with those three years in the mix Carolina is still the most consistently successful college basketball program in the country.

One thing to respect about Krzyzewski is that he is the only coach in the ACC to match Carolina's success.  He has hung with - and during the Guthridge/Doherty years surpassed - the Heels for 30 years.

Others have come and gone, and had momentary success, but no one else has ever hung with Carolina.  Very successful coaches like Bobby Cremins, Terry Holland, Jim Valvano, RIck Barnes, Dave Odom - even Pat Kennedy - eventually gave up trying to match Carolina and got out.  It's easy to imagine each of those coaches coming home one night after losing in the elite eight or the finals of the ACC tournament and proclaiming "I can't take it anymore; I've got to get out."  The stress of competing year in and year out with Carolina - and then against both the Heels and Duke - has driven many a coach to lesser jobs at South Carolina (twice actually, to Cremins and Odom), East Carolina (Terry Holland), DePaul? (Pat Kennedy), Texas (Barnes), etc.

And that brings me to Maryland. The exception to that group should be Gary Williams. Maryland should annually be one of the ACC's elite teams.  Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't.  But you would assume a coach so accomplished and comfortably ensconced at his alma mater, nestled in one of America's true high school hoops hotbeds, would be perennially competing for ACC and national championships.   

The series in The Post explains why that hasn't happened, but it still does not make sense that instead of competing for championships someone like Gary Williams is defensively arguing his case for keeping his job.

Good Nats News

Finally some good news from the Nats as they signed slugger Adam Dunn this week. Despite amassing tons of strikeouts this guy is a primo slugger, averaging more than 40 home runs for the last 5 years.  He's an old fashioned power hitter who is naturally strong, not chemically enhanced.  And despite all the strikeouts Dunn had a nice .381 on-base percentage last year.

The Nats desperately needed a power hitter; their leaders in homers last year were Lastings Milledge and Ryan Zimmerman (in only 106 games) with all of 14 dingers so Dunn is a major upgrade.  Dunn is also reported to be a great club house guy.

Besides bringing 60+ homers to Washington the addition of Dunn and Josh Willingham, who came to DC in an earlier trade with Florida, gives the Nats a credible line up.  Assuming Dunn is shifted to first base the Nats could field the following:

2B: Willie Harris

SS: Christian Guzman

CF: Milledge

1B: Dunn

3B: Zimmerman

LF: Willingham

RF: Elijah Dukes

C: Jesus Flores

Not exactly the 2008 Phillies, but more than legit. And the Nats even have some tradable guys like Nick Johnson and Ronnie Belliard that could, maybe, be turned into some pitching help.

As it always is with baseball, pitching will be key.  The Post has a good overview of the potential rotation in today's paper.  The good news is the Nats have a number of good-to-decent young arms led by number one starter John Lannan; and the pitching can't be as bad as it was last year when retread Odalis Perez was the number one.  The bad news is historic underachiever and former Oriole Daniel Cabrera is penciled in as the number 3 starter, and the Nats do not have a closer other than Joel Hanrahan on their roster. 

But hey, spring training is starting and last time I checked the Nats were tied for first place in the 2009 National League East.

A Few Random Notes

• Heels are at Miami on Sunday night.  This will be a tough game; the U hung with the Heels for 15 minutes in Chapel Hill a month ago, and Carolina could be a little flat after the thrashing they dished out in Cameron.  But I find it hard to believe that Miami can stop Lawson, Hansbrough, Ellington and Green at the same time.  Plus, Deon Thompson and now Frasor has his groove back.  It will be close, but the Heels will pull it out.
• A number of big and intriguing games in the ACC this weekend, including an ascending Florida State at a descending Wake Forest, Virginia Tech at Maryland in a difficult must-win game for the Terps, and a game featuring teams who could use a confidence and resume-building win, respectively, with Duke at Boston College.  I think I'm going to set the TiVO for all three.
• It's NBA all star weekend, and though I'm a big NBA fan I have no interest in any of the festivities. I used to love the dunk contest and even the game, but now it's just a clownish hype-fest.  Give me the ACC any day.

GO HEELS!

ACC Basketball Preview

Hope everyone has had a great holiday season. I've enjoyed the break; we had a good time playing tourists in DC as we visited the Lincoln Memorial, the new Capitol Visitor Center, and the National Zoo in the last 10 days.

But I am really looking forward to two big January happenings: inauguration day; but more urgently the start of the ACC basketball season.

ACC basketball - unlike football, which went 4-6 in bowl games - has had a decent December. So far there have been impressive wins by Carolina and Maryland over Michigan State, Duke trounced Purdue and Xavier (the Musketeers have in turn defeated Virginia Tech and Virginia), Carolina and Miami have beaten Kentucky (Miami winning in Lexington), Carolina won the Maui Invitational, Florida State took down the Gators (and NC State had a great chance to defeat Florida in Gainesville yesterday but choked in the final minute), Virginia Tech and Miami have each beaten St. John's on the road (something Notre Dame could not do) and once again the ACC won their made for TV challenge versus the Big 10.

Those are the highlights. There are some shocking low lights, such as Virginia losing at HOME to Liberty (Jerry Falwell's school). And Georgia Tech losing at home to Penn State and Illinois-Chicago . . . and Virginia, and Florida State losing to Northwestern. In general, Georgia Tech and Virginia did not help the conference at all in December (especially when you consider the Yellow Jackets' blow out loss to LSU in the Chik-Fil-A Bowl in their home town).

So after looking at the ACC schedule, here are my predictions and descriptions for the upcoming men's basketball season.

Carolina 15-1
Clemson 11-5
Duke 11-5
Wake Forest 9-7
Miami 9-7
Virginia Tech 8-8
Boston College 7-9
NC State 7-9
Maryland 6-10
Florida State 6-10
Virginia 4-12
Georgia Tech 3-13

A few observations:

• As you can see, I'm going on a limb and predicting that Carolina will lose a game. As Bill Guthridge once said, "basketball is not an undefeated sport." I think the Heels will take both games versus Duke, giving Hansbrough, Green and company a four-year sweep of the Devils in Cameron. I see the Heels slipping up at either Miami or maybe NC State. The Heels will NOT lose at Wake; one, they are too talented and two, though at home Wake will be coming off an 8 day layoff and will be rusty and red-meat for the Heels.
• Wake will make the NCAA tournament but are probably the most overrated team in the ACC. Unique among the upper echelon teams in the ACC, Wake does not own a win over a top 25 team though they did defeat an unranked Baylor team and just traveled to Utah to defeat Brigham Young (the university, not the person). I think Wake will hold serve at home but will have trouble on the road in the ACC. With at least 9 wins and good talent this team will reassert the Deacons' place in the top half of the ACC, and mark the complete recovery from Chris Paul's early departure and Skip Prosser's untimely death.
• I'm still not that impressed with Duke. I think this team will win it's share of games, but once again they are too dependent on the three-point shot, and once again Krzyzewski has not developed a reliable bench. By the time Duke rolls into Chapel Hill to end the season they will be spent and done, and fodder for a West Virginia or Arizona State or Wisconsin in the second or third round of the NCAA tournament.
• It's hard to call them a dark horse, but Clemson is one of the most intriguing teams in the ACC. Oliver Purnell knows what he is doing, and this squad will improve on last season's record and likely make it to the sweet 16. The Tigers destroyed Miami, in Coral Gables, in December and could easily finish with 12 or 13 wins if they win at Boston College and/or Florida State.
• Those two teams - the Eagles and Seminoles - will have NIT-worthy seasons punctuated by an inability to win on the road. They have talent, but without the adrenaline and energy of a home crowd will struggle to get to 7 wins. A bit more talent or seasoning could get these guys to 9 wins but I don't see it happening.
  
• The U should be better but unlike Clemson I don't see them picking up any big road wins. The Canes will likely win at bottom feeders like Virginia and Georgia Tech but struggle everywhere else. They will be a bubble team all season long, and have to win at either Maryland, BC or NC State to get to 9 wins. But 9 wins in the conference is no guarantee to make the NCAA tournament. Miami only has one quality non-conference win, at Kentucky. Their season may be undone by the loss at home to Ohio State in the ACC-Big 10 challenge, the game in which All-ACC player Jack McClintock was ejected after slapping at a Buckeyes player, a bone-headed move that cost a game and perhaps a season.
• Virginia Tech is another talented bubble team. They'll get to 8 and 8 but like Miami lack a defining non-conference win, and are unlike Miami will probably end up in the NIT. Unlike the Hurricanes, who may stay home due to McClintock's mistake, the Hokies may miss the NCAA tournament due to Xavier hitting a half-court prayer at the buzzer. A win at Duke tonight would help VPI get to 9 wins and give them a signature victory.
• NC State will overachieve to get to 7 wins. With J.J. Hickson gone, Costner and McCauley should rebound and return to the form of two years ago. But State is still very weak at the point and will get to 7 wins primarily due to the fact they play Georgia Tech, Virginia and Boston College 5 times.
• Finally, it will be another rough season in College Park, with lots of howling for Gary Williams' head. This team will be very shaky on the road and limp to 6 wins and the NIT. I have no idea how they defeated Michigan State. Not to jump all over Gary, but it's fascinating to look at all the local talent he has NOT recruited to Maryland. The list is a who's who of young basketball talent: Kevin Durant, Jeff Green, Michael Beasley, Ty Lawson, Marcus Ginyard, and that's just off the top of my head and from the last three years! All of those guys played high school ball or grew up in the DC-metro area but never made it up to College Park.
  
• So the ACC should get 5 bids to the NCAA tournament, an underwhelming number of participants. I've blogged this before, but the ACC has yet to benefit from the football-inspired expansion. The football season produced mediocrity, as evidenced by the bowl record of the conference, and the football schools have yet to enhance the hoops side of the ledger. And the unbalanced scheduled - necessitated by a 12-team league - has weakened the value of winning 8 or 9 games in the ACC. Eight wins in conference used to be a lock when the NCAA tournament committee knew a team had played Carolina and Duke four times a season. But those days are gone.

That's how I see the season playing out. Let me know what you think, and Go Heels!