Critics Shell Williams...Maryland basketball and recruiting

[fullnelson9999]

A great story on Gary Williams and his recruiting (or lack of.) As a Maryland basketball fan, it certainly does answer some questions, but at the same time makes me kind of mad. I knew that Gary was a little behind in recruiting, but I didnt know it was this bad.



http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketb...yhoo&type=lgns

[skinsfan_1215]

Well justified. Looking at ESPN's rankings of next year's recruiting class, more than 1/2 of the teams in the CAA have better incoming freshmen than Maryland.

[PleaseBlitz]

But when high school standout Kendall Marshall went to Maryland for an unofficial visit, he never met the head coach. Instead of Gary Williams, Marshall and his parents were greeted at the Comcast Center by a Terrapins assistant.

After asking Marshall’s mother to wait outside, the assistant escorted Marshall and his father, Dennis, into a musty men’s dressing room, clearing away clutter so the two could sit. Using a dry erase board, he gave the Marshalls a short presentation about how Kendall would fit into Maryland’s program.

And then?

“That was it,” Dennis Marshall said. “The whole visit was over in 20 minutes. No tour of the campus, no tour of the facilities … nothing. We just walked back to our car and went home.”

A few months later, Marshall – the fifth-best point guard in the Class of 2010, according to Rivals.com – committed to North Carolina. Instead of making the 40-minute drive from Arlington, Va., to watch his son play at Maryland, Dennis Marshall is preparing for a lot of four-hour treks to Chapel Hill.

“Kendall would’ve considered Maryland – definitely, without a doubt,” Dennis Marshall said. “But to never speak to the head coach, not one time, not through a phone conversation or in person … I just don’t get it.

“I’m not sure Gary Williams would know who we were if we sat next to him on a bus.”

Thats insane.

[TheREALJBird]

UMD needs to clean house in basketball and football. Both their coaches get free passes it seems cuz of past success but it hasn't been there lately and both can't recruit for ****.

[The Evil Genius]

UMD needs to clean house in basketball and football. Both their coaches get free passes it seems cuz of past success but it hasn't been there lately and both can't recruit for ****.

The worst thing both coaches did was win. Now, they have setup unrealistic expectations at a program that will always get out-recruited for local talent.

[DarrellsMyHero28]

The worst thing both coaches did was win. Now, they have setup unrealistic expectations at a program that will always get out-recruited for local talent.

What?

That's bogus.

Winning isn't a problem, UMD could still compete if Gary wasn't (apparently) one of the least competent recruiters in the ACC.

When UMD was competing for an winning the National Championship, he had an opportunity to build and maintain an excellent program, but when you don't even meet with one of your top prospective recruits...

I mean, I don't exactly have recruiting experience...but that's just dumb.

[skinsfan_1215]

Definitely bogus. Winning should just breed more winning. When they won the National Championship, all Williams should have had to do was say, "Ok, we're looking for recruits," and 5 of the top 10 prospects in the country would have been lined up at his door. Winning just makes recruiting easy.

Look at George Mason. They made their Final 4 run 3 years ago now, and every year since have had a solid recruiting class. Coach L has built a solid program that gets upper level recruits from all over the country. As a result, they are always competitive in the CAA, and you can count on them being in the NCAA tourney at least every other year, which is a good accomplishment for a mid-major.

[PleaseBlitz]

Definitely bogus. Winning should just breed more winning. When they won the National Championship, all Williams should have had to do was say, "Ok, we're looking for recruits," and 5 of the top 10 prospects in the country would have been lined up at his door. Winning just makes recruiting easy.

Look at George Mason. They made their Final 4 run 3 years ago now, and every year since have had a solid recruiting class. Coach L has built a solid program that gets upper level recruits from all over the country. As a result, they are always competitive in the CAA, and you can count on them being in the NCAA tourney at least every other year, which is a good accomplishment for a mid-major.

And jim larranaga bascially lives in PG county, constantly searching for talent, building relationships, and doing the work. Recruiting takes work, and it's half your job if you want to win as a college coach, in any sport.

[skinsfan_1215]

As someone pointed out in another thread, all 5 starters from Mason's 06 Final Four team were from Maryland. Yeah, great job there Williams.

[Elessar78]

And jim larranaga bascially lives in PG county, constantly searching for talent, building relationships, and doing the work. Recruiting takes work, and it's half your job if you want to win as a college coach, in any sport.

Totally agree. No matter what college sport, but especially in football in basketball recruiting is half your job.

And I don't buy that section in the article that says he's trying to protect his integrity. There's a lot of coaches with integrity that recruit their butts off. Call a spade a spade, GW doesn't like recruiting and that's to the detriment of the program.

[HSW]

These days, though, simply talking to a high-profile recruit requires going through layers of AAU coaches, mentors, handlers and advisors – some of whom expect perks such as getting a job on a college coaching staff. It’s a situation that disgusts old-school coaches such as Williams, but it’s also a situation that isn’t going to change.
“The game is different now,” said Boo Williams, who runs one of the country’s most successful AAU programs. “With some of these kids, it starts as far back as elementary school. There are a lot of people you have to touch hands with to get in on a recruit.

These AAU coaches are a piece of work...they basically come out
and say that you have bribe them. Screw them...

[earl]

After reading this article i think he should be fired. If GW wants to keep his integrity and still be competitive, then go coach in the Ivy league or the Naval Academy. But you can't survive in the ACC, arguably the best BBall conf. year after year, w/o top notch talent.

[jthor99]

Here's my main issue with Gary and I believe is one of the root of MD problems. First off, I firmly believe there is more then just "one" issue in why MD basketball program has become irrelevent in the ACC.

First off, recruiting in college basketball starts in AAU. It had been clearly outlined that Gary Williams refuses to conduct himself with AAU basketball or even the members of it.

This is why Coach's like Jim Calhoun, and Jim Beiheim come down here and simply steal the mid atlantic kids. Recruiting isn't about going to high school's anymore.

AAU is where the majority of MAJOR recruiting takes place. These kids listen to there AAU coaches like they would one of their homeboys because it's the guys they spend all of their time with.

Gary simply has 0 AAU connections and it is causing his basketball program to suffer. Just like in ANY sport in order to stay on top you have to make adjustments.Gary Williams simply refuses to make any, which is while MD will continue to suffer in basketball.

As the article mentions Gary will literally die to the grave in his ways. Well in my opinion, he's digging his own grave at College Park right now. Don't your breath for too long MD fans because nothing is changing until they replace Gary

[PleaseBlitz]

Williams continues to get slammed. 3 part piece in the Post.

Part 1

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...021102722.html

For 30 seconds on the first day of April in 2002, there was no better view in college basketball than through the eyes of Maryland Coach Gary Williams. As the final minute of the NCAA tournament final ticked down inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Williams's team held a double-digit lead over the Indiana Hoosiers.

The national championship capped the remarkable revival of a program decimated by scandal in the mid- to late 1980s, and Williams had done it his way: with players who hadn't been highly coveted coming out of high school and without resorting to the schemes that were becoming increasingly prevalent in recruiting.

Seven years later, the view through Williams's eyes isn't nearly as appealing. The adoring fans have been replaced by angry skeptics. The Terrapins have reached the round of 16 only once since winning the title and are in danger of missing the NCAA tournament altogether for the fourth time in five seasons.

A review of NCAA tournament records shows that no national champion in the past 18 seasons has regressed so quickly.

How did this happen? Interviews with more than 50 coaches, players and others knowledgeable about the program reveal many explanations, and Williams, 63, is central to each of them.

Some say his disdain for under-the-table recruiting tactics has left him out of touch with the influential summer league circuit; others say he has grown complacent, delegating most recruiting duties to an ever-changing group of assistants. Clearly, Maryland has been hurt by landing highly touted recruits whose potential was never fulfilled and by failing to identify less-heralded future stars, many of whom attended high schools within short drives of College Park.

Williams argues that his 412-223 record at the school, including 11 consecutive NCAA tournament appearances from 1994 to 2004, proves his coaching acumen. He says he is as involved in recruiting as any coach in the nation and that the occasional recruiting misstep is to be expected in such an ephemeral task. "Well, you miss kids," he said. "This is not a perfect science."

Regardless of cause, the effect on the court has been clear: A program located amid arguably the deepest pool of high school talent in the country is fading. And Williams, in his 20th season coaching at the school where he played point guard more than four decades ago, could face pressure to step down after the season. Williams has three years left on a contract that pays him about $2 million annually in salary and benefits, but with another March looming with limited postseason prospects, even he admits "because of the bar we set, [that] is probably unacceptable to a lot of people."

The Future Seemed Bright

From a personnel standpoint, the future of the Maryland program appeared incandescent on the night it claimed the national championship. The incoming recruiting class consisted of a McDonald's all-American power forward, a two-time All-Met shooting guard, a point guard who had been named the Virginia AAA player of the year as a junior and a small forward who was Maine's Mr. Basketball.

No one knew then -- not Williams, not his staff, not Terrapins fans -- that the program would have been better off with some of the recruits it had rejected.

Deron Williams, a point guard prospect in the recruiting class of 2002 out of The Colony, Tex., led his team to the Class 5A state semifinals as a junior, and Maryland was the first school with which he arranged an official visit.

However, Deron Williams's mother, Denise Smith, said neither she nor her son ever spoke to Gary Williams. Smith found it odd that Gary Williams was not involved at all in Maryland's efforts to recruit her son, especially considering how hands-on head coaches such as Paul Hewitt at Georgia Tech, Bill Self at Illinois and Buzz Peterson at Tennessee were in courting Deron.

"I heard [Gary Williams] was like that," said Smith, who noted that assistant coach Jimmy Patsos was Deron's only contact from Maryland. "But then it got me thinking. Deron grew up without a dad. Gary is, like, standoffish, not involved with the players. I don't think he would have been the right coach for Deron. Deron needs somebody who is more involved and communicates with him and really takes an interest in him personally."

Smith said Maryland "eliminated" Deron from consideration after the program set its sights on another point guard, John Gilchrist. She said Maryland canceled the visit shortly before it was set to commence.

Gilchrist attended Salem High in Virginia Beach and was the Virginia AAA player of the year as a junior in 2001. Gary Williams said he could only take one point guard that year and that Maryland got the one it wanted.

"A lot of people thought [Deron Williams] would be too heavy," Gary Williams said. "I didn't know [Deron] Williams was going to be that good. I don't think many people did, from what he was in high school. He was good; he was solid. But John Gilchrist was right here. Easier to recruit. Okay, so I recruited" Gilchrist.

Way more at link.

Part 2.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...021202299.html

When Gary Williams considered Rudy Gay in 2003, the Maryland men's basketball coach saw his chance to win a second national title in a long and athletic forward who could help keep the Terrapins at an elite level after reaching back-to-back Final Fours.

When Gay considered Maryland, the emerging star at Archbishop Spalding High saw a group of players he had grown up rooting for, a new arena in which he could excel and a rabid fan base that might one day view him as an icon.

But when it came time to select a college after a fierce recruiting battle, Gay chose Connecticut, ignoring the dozens of signs posted at his high school urging him to sign with Maryland.

It was merely one player, one recruiting battle lost by Williams amid hundreds that coaches routinely lose throughout their careers. But those closely familiar with the veteran coach's recruiting say Gay's decision was a turning point. Gay's recruitment, so scrutinized that it appeared to be the impetus for an NCAA rule change in its aftermath, cemented Williams's belief that signing the most sought-after recruits in the current climate often depends on practices he is unwilling to undertake. As a result of that experience, they say Williams has steadfastly avoided pursuing relationships with many of the most influential power brokers in the recruiting world.

If he needs validation for such a stance, Williams can point to a display case on a concourse at Comcast Center that holds the 2002 national championship trophy. After all, it was won by Williams with a cast of players who mostly were unheralded out of high school.

"If [Gay] wanted to come here, and we recruited him, and we offered him a scholarship, why didn't he come here?" Williams said during an hour-long interview last week. "It had to be for another reason, right?"

Williams's detractors argue that it's still possible to follow NCAA rules and recruit successfully. They say his stance is one reason Maryland has regressed faster than any national champion in the past 18 years, according to NCAA records.

Said Curtis Malone, whose talent-rich D.C. Assault summer league basketball program garners national attention, "A guy like Gary, he is not a big AAU guy, and everyone knows that."

More at link.

Part 3 is tomorrow i think.

[MattFancy]

i think its time for gary to move on. when you can't land recruits from your own backyard, that's not good. there have been plenty of great players to come from the maryland area. durant, beasley, gay, lawson, ginyard, carmelo, nolan smith, mcclinton, and scottie reynolds to name a few. you can't tell me that he shouldn't have been able to land a few of those players. he keeps pointing back to his championship in 2002, but that was 7 years ago. what has umd done since? they will most likely miss the tourney again this year and they continue to be just a mediocore team. until gary can get some of the great talent that comes out of md high schools, the terps aren't going anywhere. and i'm not even a umd fan...