As he nears the end of his 19th season at his alma mater, University of Maryland men?s basketball coach Gary Williams has secured his place in history as a Hall of Famer and the greatest leader ever to stalk the sideline for the Terrapins. His name should be etched on the court at Comcast Center someday.
But as the Terps participate in their third National Invitation Tournament in the past four years while the NCAA Tournament begins once again in a universe where Maryland once was seemingly a charter member, Williams is in the strange twilight of a superb career.
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At 63, with two Final Fours and the school?s only national championship increasingly behind him, not to mention seven Sweet 16 trips during a run of 11 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances, Williams is one of two things. He is either the distinguished old hand who rebuilt a crushed program without resorting to cheating and deserves to retire on his terms, or he is the faltering old hand who should be shoved out the door sooner than later.
I?m leaning heavily toward the former, with some stipulations.
Williams, the most successful coach ever at Maryland with 604 career wins, has earned the chance to turn things around the next two seasons.
If the Terps remain mired in NIT-land, or ? gasp ? slip to their first losing season since 1993, then it?s time for Garyland to give way to the next era. Whether Williams throws in the towel on his own or is nudged by the university, it?s time for the king to abdicate the throne.
The thought Williams is forever untouchable is unrealistic. He is the highest-paid employee at the school, and remains the school?s top fund-raiser and its biggest man on campus, but Williams still serves at the pleasure of the university?s president and athletics director.
If you?re judging Williams primarily on his past five years in College Park, the case for bringing in new blood can be made. For a variety of reasons ? faulty recruiting, instability among his coaching staff, the failure to develop talent sufficiently to fit his system, the relentlessly increasing parity in the sport ? the Terps have been undeniably disappointing.
Since coming out of nowhere ? and off of the NCAA Tournament bubble ? to win the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament in 2004, there have been precious few high points. And this year has given the anti-Williams crowd some potent rounds of ammunition.
A year after making the NCAA Tournament for the first time in three seasons, the Terps overcame a poor start that included stunning home losses to American and Ohio and an 0-2 record in ACC play.
They knocked off No. 1 North Carolina on the road, ascended to third place in the league standings a month ago, only to fall flat beneath a pile of turnovers and inconsistency with a 1-5 finish, before getting shut out of the 65-team party again.
The Terrapin Club members, especially the ones ponying up five-figure sums or more each year for the privilege of a nice seat at Comcast Center, surely are not amused. Bids to the NIT are not acceptable, not with a program that, under Williams, has raised the bar of expectations so high.
This was not Williams? best coaching job this season. He never developed a decent bench, did not get enough clutch play out of his senior frontcourt, played sophomore Eric Hayes out of position too much at the off-guard spot, and never put a leash on sophomore point guard Greivis Vasquez. His penchant for turnovers severely undercut his status as the team?s most talented player, and he sometimes hurt as much as he helped.
Williams has never been the most energetic recruiter, and in some ways he is still recovering from the back-to-back classes that followed the 2002 title team and flopped. Of the nine players that comprised those two classes, only D.J. Strawberry lived up to billing.
Guard Mike Jones, once tabbed second-best behind LeBron James by so-called experts, never panned out.
Neither did forward Nik Caner-Medley, the Player of the Year in Maine.
Or forward Travis Garrison, the McDonald?s All-American.
Or Will Bowers, Hassan Fofana or Ekene Ibekwe ? three more big men who failed to live up to standards set by the likes of Lonny Baxter, Joe Smith and Keith Booth.
Despite his recent stumbles, Williams deserves more time to get things right again. With much-hyped forward Gus Gilchrist and guard Shawn Mosley coming in next year to join Vasquez, Hayes and a core of promising young talent the includes guards Adrian Bowie and Cliff Tucker, I wouldn?t bet against the old hand.
Not yet, anyway.
Gary Lambrecht writes about the NFL, Major League Baseball and college sports. He can be reached at [email protected].
