Updating the NBA Entry List and Honoring a Maryland Legend

BASELINE TO BASELINE

Go coast to coast with a roundup of news from across the nation.

Here’s a quick recap of all the major NBA decisions from the past week. The NCAA’s deadline for early entrants to remain eligible required players to decide by May 8 if they wanted to remain in the NBA Draft or return to school.

Remaining in the draft:

• Boston College’s Reggie Jackson
• Butler’s Shelvin Mack
• Georgia Tech’s Iman Shumpert
• Kentucky’s Brandon Knight
• Kentucky’s DeAndre Liggins
• Louisville’s Terrence Jennings
• Maryland’s Jordan Williams
• Michigan’s Darius Morris
• Stanford’s Jeremy Green
• Tennessee’s Tobias Harris
• Tennessee’s Scotty Hopson
• Texas’ Cory Joseph
• Texas’ Tristan Thompson

Returning to school:

• Kentucky’s Terrence Jones
• Miami’s Reggie Johnson
• Missouri’s Laurence Bowers
• Missouri’s Kim English
• Northwestern’s John Shurna
• Pittsburgh’s Ashton Gibbs
• West Virginia’s Kevin Jones
• Xavier’s Tu Holloway

1. The biggest news of the past few days is Gary Williams’ retirement at Maryland. The Terrapins’ coach unexpectedly decided to call it a career at age 66 after working at his alma mater since 1989. Maryland moved quickly to court Arizona’s Sean Miller, who passed on the the offer by signing an extension with the Wildcats, according to John Marshall of the Associated Press. That makes Notre Dame’s Mike Brey one of the top choices right now, according to the Washington Post.
2. In other Washington, D.C., area coaching news, George Washington picked Mike Lonergan to be the Colonials’ next coach, according to the Associated Press. Lonergan comes back to D.C. after working at Vermont for five seasons, compiling a 126-68 record. Lonergan coached Catholic University to a Division III title in 2001 and worked with Gary Williams as an assistant at Maryland for a few years.
3. Gonzaga needs to find a new starting point guard after Demetri Goodson announced that he’s leaving the team to play football, according to the Associated Press. Goodson averaged 5.2 points and 2.6 assists per game for the Bulldogs this past season.
4. Michigan State Tom Izzo returned the favor for Spartan fans last week. To help boost student morale during final exams week, Izzo joined other Spartan coaches in serving food at the university’s dining hall, according to Diamond Leung of ESPN.com’s ìCollege Basketball Nation.î That’s a nice way to thank the Izzone fans who help give Michigan State one of the toughest home court advantages in the nation.
5. Speaking of Izzo, the Spartans’ coach might be getting some much-needed backcourt help in Valparaiso transfer Brandon Wood, according to the Associated Press.. The Horizon League’s No. 3 scorer is transferring to Michigan State after completing his undergraduate degree. Because of NCAA rules for graduate transfers, Wood might be eligible to play immediately for a team losing Kalin Lucas to graduation.
6. Jeff Capel has returned to a familiar sideline. The former Oklahoma coach, who was fired after this past season, accepted an offer to become an assistant coach on coach Mike Krzyzewski’s staff at Duke, according to the Associated Press. Capel played four years in Durham and put up more than 1,600 points.
7. The Pac-10 can’t complain about an East Coast bias for much longer. The conference soon to be known as the Pac-12 signed an agreement with ESPN and Fox Sports worth $250 million per season, tops in men’s basketball, according to Josh Dubow of the Associated Press.
8. Wyoming coach Larry Shyatt has recruited his first big name as the Cowboys’ new coach. Larry Nance Jr., son of longtime NBA player Larry Nance, will arrive in Laramie this fall after averaging about a double double as a senior in Ohio this past season.
9. Looking ahead to 2012, Louisville might not have the services of Rodney Purvis, a top-rated shooting guard in the class of rising high school seniors who reopened his recruitment, according to Eamonn Brennan of ESPN.com’s ìCollege Basketball Nation.î Louisville had received a verbal commitment from Purvis, partially thanks to the hard work of assistant Tom Fuller, who left Pitino’s staff recently to work for Frank Haith at Missouri.
10. Former Cyclone John Lamb, a walk-on who left Iowa State mid-season, was arrested last week and charged with possession of marijuana with intent to sell and a violation of Drug Tax Stamp Act, according to the Associated Press.

HOME COURT ADVANTAGE

This section is aptly titled for a Washington, D.C., area writer looking to write a column honoring the importance of recently retired Maryland coach Gary Williams.

In his 22 years at Maryland, Williams helped craft the Terrapins into a perennial ACC contender. His continued success eased the path to the construction of the Comcast Center, which is one of the largest arenas in the conference and has one of the best home court advantages. The 20,000-plus fans who fill the Comcast Center haven’t always approved of the quality of the home team, but they consistently fill the arena with rowdy fans, giving Maryland one of the best home court advantages in the country.

After the turmoil of the late 1980s, it’s amazing that Williams was able to get this program back to the top of the ACC so quickly. Trouble started in 1986 with the death of Terrapin hero Len Bias, who seemed destined to become a national hero as a possible heir apparent to Larry Bird in Boston. However, his cocaine-induced death and the subsequent brouhaha in College Park derailed the program, leading to the ouster of coach Lefty Driesell.

Without Driesell, the team fell into mediocrity — and NCAA violations — during the tenure of Bob Wade. With the program on probation and lackluster performance on the court, Williams returned to his alma mater with a tough task at hand.

It took Williams five seasons, but once he got the Terrapins into the NCAA Tournament, they remained fixtures of March Madness until 2005. That includes a Final Four run in 2001 that ended mercilessly with the team’s fourth loss of the season to eventual national champion Duke. But Williams and Maryland vanquished those demons the next season when the Terrapins won the 2002 title.

The championship title was a turning point for Williams’ tenure at Maryland. Until then, the critics liked to talk about Williams as one of the greatest coaches to have never won a title — a fraternity no coach enjoys being part of. With that monkey off his back, Williams then had to deal with detractors who bemoaned that Williams failed to use the program’s success to attract the top recruits to College Park.

Recruiting is a touchy subject for Maryland fans. On the plus side, no one has even sniffed an NCAA violation during Williams’ years. But on the other hand, Williams drew the ire of many fans because he couldn’t keep a lot of the talented kids in Prince George’s County, Md., and Baltimore in-state. Highly touted recruits like Kevin Durant, Michael Beasley, Ty Lawson, Rudy Gay, Nolan Smith and seemingly half of Georgetown’s starting lineup each season are all locals. That would be acceptable if Williams had a slew of talented recruits on a conveyor belt to College Park from across the country.

But after three NIT appearances in four seasons, the natives became restless. Williams had the misfortune of dealing with a few disastrous recruits, including the much-maligned post-championship class of Chris McCray, John Gilchrist, Travis Garrison and Nik Caner-Medley. That core failed to meet lofty expectations, and the fans nearly revolted at the perceived inability of Williams to coach a great class. But the players just didn’t work out. It happens.

Williams got Maryland back on track with Greivis Vasquez and Eric Hayes. He helped Vasquez mature from a sloppy point guard and nearly out of control hothead to a dominant ACC player who was a threat to post a triple double nearly any night. The Terrapins returned to the NCAA Tournament three out of four seasons but never advanced further than the second round.

Heading into this off-seaosn, Maryland was at a cross-roads as another disappointing recruiting class — Adrian Bowie, Cliff Tucker and Dino Gregory — finished their collegiate careers. Jordan Williams, one of the top recruits in recent years to come to Maryland, figured to be the linchpin of next season’s team, but he is heading to the NBA instead.

At age 66, Williams was staring at a complete rebuilding project in an era that makes it increasingly difficult to run a clean and successful program. Williams refused to sacrifice one for the other. That makes now a great time for Williams to step down. To rebuild the Terrapins, Williams would need at least a couple of years to get the right guys around solid building blocks like Pe’Shon Howard and Terrell Stoglin. Williams might be pushing 70 before the Terrapins have another legitimate shot at a deep run.

When I’m pushing 70, I hope have the energy to work more than 60 hours a week recruiting, strategizing and representing a major college program. After such a remarkable, program-defining coaching career, Williams has earned this respite.

Giving Thanks to Hoops!

Quick Hitters – January 29, 2010

Quick hitters as we head into another weekend, the first full weekend of Ivy League play:

• Boston College is suddenly relevant again after knocking off Clemson 75-69 on Tuesday night.  The Eagles looked dead after a 1-3 start in ACC play, with all three losses being by double digits, and a tough loss at Virginia Tech on Saturday didn’t help.  But the Eagles took over Tuesday’s game with the press – something that has more often killed the Eagles when other teams have done it – and played their best game in a while.  Reggie Jackson sparked the Eagles as soon as he came off the bench, and led the way with 18 points and seven assists.
  While he’s the second-youngest player on the team (Brady Heslip has displaced him as the youngest), Jackson clearly has a keen sense of where his team stands in the grand scheme of things.

  “We figured, we want to win to be a contender in this league and make the NCAA Tourney,” Jackson said.  “Also, I preached to the team when we came out at halftime that if we want (the fans) to keep showing up, we’re going to have to get W’s, because this is basically a professional city.  With the Red Sox, the Patriots and Celtics, if we want people to show up, we’re going to have to put up more W’s and stop letting people down.”

  The Eagles still have a lot of work to do to reach the NCAA Tournament, but knocking off Clemson makes the case that a run by them can’t be counted out just yet.

• Clemson was without junior point guard Demontez Stitt due to a sprained foot, but that wasn’t why the Tigers lost.  In the first half, after running out to an 8-3 lead they simply didn’t look like they were in the game.  The offense didn’t have much life to it, and Oliver Purnell hasn’t had quite the depth he’s had in the past as his freshmen don’t appear to be as good right now as those he’s had in past years were as freshmen to help spell the starters for a few minutes.
  “For whatever reason, I thought we were a bit flat in the first half – flat-footed, we weren’t tough with the basketball, missed layups, and just weren’t sharp and tough,” Purnell said after the game.

• Purnell added that while Stitt still played over 30 minutes in games since the injury, he turned it over again in each game and got to the point where it would be more prudent to hold him out given the time in between games.  The Tigers don’t play again until they host Maryland on Sunday.

• One had to wonder how Providence would bounce back from the meltdown against South Florida.  In their first game after it, the Friars showed no ill effects in beating Connecticut 81-66.
  “I couldn’t have dreamed that we’d bounce back like this,” said head coach Keno Davis, after what he called “our best game of the year.”

• Bryant stayed with Fairleigh Dickinson on Thursday for a while, but the Knights had too much in the backcourt with Terence Grier and Sean Baptiste, who combined to go 7-9 from long range.  The Bulldogs, who remain short-handed due to injuries as Cecil Gresham is done for the season, aren’t far away but that first win is still proving elusive.
  “I can’t fault our effort in any way,” said head coach Tim O’Shea.  “I said in the locker room, they really are a much better team than they were a few months ago, it’s just a matter of trying to get over the hump here.”

• Santa Clara made a pretty good bid to knock off Gonzaga, but the Bulldogs played like a conference leader in coming back to basically win the game going away on the road.  There might not be a player more valuable to his team than Matt Bouldin is to Gonzaga, and Thursday night marked the eighth straight game in which he played at least 37 minutes.  With Demetri Goodson having some growing pains at the point, Bouldin has had to handle a lot of responsibility, but he just keeps winning games.