March 8, 2001

Chris Boyer
TheACC.com

ATLANTA - Gary Williams is from New Jersey. He went to school at Maryland. He knows the critical nature of Northeasterners.

Maryland is the northernmost school in the ACC. Despite consistent and substantial success over the last seven years, the Terrapins have not won an ACC Tournament in Williams' tenure as head coach. The Jersey boy knows that is going to earn him his critics.

"We have a Northeast mentality up there. We know how cynical people can be from the Northeast, it is just part of the deal. Most of the students in College Park are from the Northeast. Either they are from the state of Maryland, or they are from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania. They are not from the South. We are also in a pro sports town, so the same people that are out there booing the Redskins on Sundays, come to our games when the Redskins season is over, so we get treated like the pro teams."

"When I was at Ohio State, we were the franchise. We're not the franchise in D.C. We are competing with five or six teams, so we know expectations are going to be very high."

This year, the criticism of the Terps was especially vocal during a mid-season slide after the heartbreaking overtime loss to Duke in Cole Field House. Of late, however, Williams's squad has been as hot as any team in the ACC, and perhaps the country. It's a turnaround of which Williams has not seen the likes previously in his coaching career.

"I have not seen a stretch, where a team has beaten four ranked teams after playing so poorly for an extended period. We were a good team before the Duke game, we were 5 and 1 in the conference, but that game, whatever it did to us, really hurt us. It took us longer than I thought it would to get out of it. People ask us if this is as good as we have played all season, and I think we were playing just as good against Duke in the first game up until the last minute."

Despite, their red-hot recent play, Williams denies Maryland is the team to beat in this year's ACC Tournament.

"I think the number one and two seeds are the favorites. Maybe it's fair to say we're the darkhorse. Sure, I want to be the darkhorse, we're the number 3 seed, what else could we be. The number 3 seed can't be the favorite. How does that work?"

Yet, Williams does know he is entering the post season with one of his most talented teams at Maryland.

"When I took the job at Maryland things were a lot worse than I ever guessed they were, so for a while I thought I hurt my career by coming here. I didn't know if it would have been fatal, but I definitely thought I had hurt myself. Today, I think it's a great job. I am very comfortable at Maryland. I think it's a great area of the country. There are cultural things, that some people do, plus the beach, the mountains, major cities. It's a pretty good place to be."

Yet, he knows he will need to accomplish great things to be considered a great coach.

"If you ask people to name the best teams in college basketball over the last 50 years, most people will say Duke and North Carolina are two of them. That's what you face when you play in the ACC. The other schools wake up everyday knowing that fact, and knowing you have to win every game that you play. The only problem is that when you get compared, you get compared to those two schools. In recruiting, when you lose a player to Duke, you get asked why you can't out recruit them. Nobody can out recruit Duke right now."

Yet despite the comparisons and critics, Williams continues to make himself directly accessible to the public and the media via call in shows, the internet and live post game interviews.

"I have always wanted to be a basketball coach, and I have always thought answering questions is part of the deal. I have a great job, and I make a lot of money doing something I love and that I never thought I would make money at. Even when things are really bad like say after the Florida State loss, and I have a chance to go home that night after talking to my players and seeing how strong they react, I don't know if you get that at a lot of other jobs. Giving something back seems like something I just need to do."

So this year Gary Williams will once again try to win an ACC Tournament and get his Terps past the Sweet Sixteen, and he knows he will get criticized if he doesn't.

"I just try to keep it in perspective, we have done a lot better than a lot of teams. So, if we only go to the Sweet Sixteen is that OK? I don't know. That's why you can't let yourself go crazy. You can't get too high or too low. But does criticism bother me? Sure."