BALTIMORE — For one afternoon at the end of February, past met present, and all felt well in the realm of University of Maryland men’s basketball.
Fatts Russell and his teammates ran circles around No. 22 Ohio State as boisterous students coordinated cheers from the stands at the Xfinity Center in College Park. Late in the first half, a video narrated by Johnny Holliday, the venerable voice of Maryland basketball, played on the overhead scoreboard as members of the 2001-02 team made their way to center court. Led by coach Gary Williams, still a force of nature as his 77th birthday approached, these middle-aged men basked in the appreciation of what they accomplished 20 years earlier: Maryland’s lone national championship in the sport.
“Everybody has to be together. That’s the future of Maryland basketball, too,” Williams said, choking back tears. “We all have to be together.”
The scene belied feelings of uncertainty and dissatisfaction that hang over the university’s flagship athletic program as it prepares to enter a new era under a new head coach, Kevin Willard. Two decades after Williams, Juan Dixon and Co. hoisted their golden trophy in Atlanta, Maryland stumbled to its first losing record since 1993. Mark Turgeon, Williams’ successor, stepped down in December, seemingly exhausted after 10-plus years of leading good — but not great — teams.
Athletic Director Damon Evans selected Willard, who turned Seton Hall University from a mess to a perennial Big East contender, to chase the tournament wins and clear identity that have eluded Maryland in recent years. One major donor to the athletic department, Upper Marlboro attorney Rick Jaklitsch, called the hire “possibly the biggest decision the university makes this century.”
“Where does it need to go? It needs to become a program that competes every year for conference championships and on occasion, for national championships,” Jaklitsch said. “That’s where Maryland basketball should be.”
The Terps have won 423 games since the national title, a rate of more than 20 per season. But they have not made it past the Sweet 16 in 10 NCAA Tournament appearances. In other words: not good enough for a fan base that’s believed Maryland should be a perennial powerhouse ever since coach Lefty Driesell said it could be the “UCLA of the East Coast” in 1969.
“When I first came here, I thought of the program in the likes of the blue bloods like Kentucky and Duke,” said Eric Ayala, a senior guard on Maryland’s 2021-22 team. “When I grew up watching college basketball, Maryland was one of those kinds of schools.”
But home crowds have dwindled — 13,052 fans per game this past season compared with full houses of 17,950 per game in 2004 and 2008. Meanwhile, Maryland rarely seems in the running for cream-of-the-crop recruits, even those who grow up in the region. And although the Terps have profited from membership in the Big Ten, they have won just one regular-season title since jumping from the Atlantic Coast Conference after the 2013-14 season.
The impact of the conference switch should be weighted heavily as fans sort out their expectations, said ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas, who played against Maryland in the ACC at Duke.
“What the average fan may not understand is the difficulty of a transition from a traditional footprint in the ACC to what Maryland went to in the Big Ten,” Bilas said. “It was primarily a business decision, which I have no quarrel with. But it made Maryland a different basketball and football job. It certainly changed the feel for even fans … but it also changed recruiting and put Maryland in a different league where it didn’t have institutional knowledge. That takes time.”
The team that won the championship 20 years ago next week is a cherished ideal for Maryland. But it’s also a reminder of how difficult it is for most programs to achieve harmony. Williams did not stock his roster with the country’s top talent; he puzzled together a rotation in which every player knew his role and weaknesses were minimized. If it was easy, the Hall of Fame coach would have done it again over his final nine seasons in College Park.
“It’s hard to win, I’m learning as a coach,” said Dixon, Maryland’s all-time leading scorer and now the men’s coach at Coppin State University. “You need the right pieces in place, you need people to stay healthy, you need the right coaches and you need everything to fall into place.”
It’s easy to forget that Williams went 61-57 over his first four years in College Park as he tried to pull Maryland from its gloomy torpor following the 1986 overdose death of star forward Len Bias. Starting with his fifth season, Williams ran off 11 straight NCAA Tournament appearances, highlighted by Maryland’s first trip to the Final Four in 2001 and the national championship the following spring.
“It’s not just having really good players,” Williams said. “Everything has to go right for you.”
How elusive is ultimate success in March Madness? The Big Ten sent nine teams to the NCAA Tournament this year, more than any other conference, but it has not produced a national champion since 2000.
Team building has only become more difficult everywhere in recent years, with elite prospects staying in college just a year or two before they jump to the NBA and players of all qualities making liberal use of the NCAA’s transfer portal to hop between programs. Athletes also have new economic opportunities in the form of name, image and likeness rights — another unpredictable factor for the modern coach to master. Whether you think this new world order is better or worse, it’s less conducive to stability.
“If things don’t work out for these young student-athletes early on, the transfer portal has made it a serious issue to build a program,” Dixon said. “Coach Williams was very fortunate that back then, that wasn’t a thing, where a kid would transfer if he wasn’t happy. No, we worked through it. We were coached hard. We realized that we had to earn it.”
Williams was worn out when he retired in 2011. His last eight years at Maryland encompassed tremendous highs, such as the John Gilchrist-led upset of Duke in the 2004 ACC tournament, and plenty of lows, including four seasons when Maryland missed the NCAA Tournament.
Fans hoped Turgeon, hired for his track record with several other programs and his pedigree as a University of Kansas player and assistant coach, would re-energize recruiting.
What followed was a divisive run in which he earned the respect of many leading donors to Maryland athletics but never escaped critics who expected greater glory from the basketball program.
Turgeon finished with a higher winning percentage (.661) at Maryland than Williams (.647). Like his predecessor, he needed a few seasons to ramp up, but he signed a pair of top-10 recruits in Diamond Stone and Jalen Smith and led the Terps to the NCAA Tournament five times in his last seven full seasons.
The coronavirus pandemic robbed Maryland of another trip, and Turgeon’s supporters see that 2019-20 season as the great missed opportunity of his tenure. The Terps earned a share of the Big Ten regular-season title and would have gone into the national tournament as a high seed. Turgeon said it was “devastating” when the pandemic wiped out their chance.
Less than two years later, he was gone.
Turgeon did not always feel supported by the university’s leadership, said Jaklitsch, who became close with the coach. He noted that Turgeon would raise funds for projects such as a $40 million, basketball-specific practice facility, only to watch progress stagnate. On Tuesday, Evans said the university has raised enough money to build the facility and that construction could begin early next year.
“There’s a frustration … with promises that weren’t kept to him,” Jaklitsch said of Turgeon. “Then, I think there’s frustration among the top donors, too, that all the criticism comes from know-it-alls who aren’t giving a penny to the program. … That’s the biggest impediment: the money and the fan support. It comes down to the dollars, and that translates through when you’re trying to hire [your next] coach.”
Turgeon did not respond to a request for comment.
The negativity around Turgeon crescendoed during Maryland’s 5-3 start this season. After a home loss to Virginia Tech in December, fans chanted “Fire Turgeon.” Shortly after, he began talking with Evans about an exit plan, leaving the rest of the season to assistant coach, Danny Manning.
As Maryland prepares for life under Willard, only its third coach in 33 years, will he encounter an optimistic, patient fan base or step immediately into the cauldron that boiled Turgeon down?
The 46-year-old Willard comes to Maryland with a resume akin to Turgeon’s. He turned around Iona and then Seton Hall. He’s known for drawing fierce efforts from players who did not arrive on campus as superstars. Maryland signed the new coach to a seven-year, $29.4 million contract.
But some Maryland fans question his 1-5 record in the NCAA Tournament and the monotonous offenses he’s sometimes run. Will he be another good coach who can’t drag the Terps back to the summit?
Bilas doesn’t expect Willard to be daunted by high expectations. “Usually, when a coach takes a job, it’s because there have been difficulties,” the ESPN analyst said. “But the bones are great. Maryland’s got tradition, it’s got a brand, it’s in a great league, it’s a Power Five job. It’s not like taking over a program that has been traditionally downtrodden and you’re trying to raise it up for the first time.”
Memories of Williams’ national championship linger for those who love Maryland basketball. Members of that team said they’re hopeful for what lies ahead.
“There is nothing wrong with the program,” Williams said before Willard was hired. “In other words, everything involved — the marketing, the TV games, you have all those things. It’s just getting a leader in here that is willing to put the time in and work hard and it can happen quickly.”
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Baltimore Sun reporter Ryan McFadden contributed to this article.
