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Posted: Wednesday October 16, 2002 3:08 PM
Updated: Sunday October 27, 2002 3:21 PM
Maryland Terrapins
The following preview is provided by Blue Ribbon. For the most thorough preview available of the upcoming season, order the 2002-03 Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook, on sale now at 1-800-775-2518.
Coach and Program | Starters Lost | Others Lost
Projected Starters | Key Reserves | Final Analysis
COACH AND PROGRAM
Sometimes, enduring all the hardships makes glory all the greater.
Maybe that's why Maryland coach Gary Williams has enjoyed himself so much over the past six months, reveling in the school's first national championship. He, better than anyone else, knows the heartbreak and heartache that his alma mater went through for decades before cutting down the nets last April at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.
As a player, Williams was on mediocre Terrapin teams. He watched from afar as Lefty Driesell collected some of the best talent in school history, only to be outshone by North Carolina State's national champions, back in the day when the NCAA allowed only one team per conference to compete for the national championship.
He cried with everyone else when Len Bias died, and so nearly too did Maryland's basketball program. When he inherited the team 14 years ago, it was still reeling from that death and the probation that followed during the tenure of predecessor Bob Wade.
At times, Williams wasn't sure if he was going to be able to turn the program around. The obstacles were high; the rewards, at least in the early days, were few. He still bitterly remembers not being able to compete in his first ACC Tournament as head coach, because of a postseason punishment for previous misdeeds.
But throughout the 1990s, Williams kept building, putting together decent recruiting classes and finding a star every now and then like Joe Smith or Steve Francis. He was never one to hoard McDonald's All-Americas like some coaches, but he proved to have an excellent eye for finding players who developed throughout their careers into excellent players, guys like Johnny Rhodes, Keith Booth and Terence Morris.
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Again, however, the Terps were being overshadowed in their own league by Duke and North Carolina, those wretched leaders of the Tobacco Road Mafia that always maintained the power in the ACC. The Tar Heels kept going to the Final Four, and the Blue Devils won three national titles from 1992-2001.
So even though Williams was building a program as good as any in the country, going to the Sweet 16 six times in nine years, the Terps were never immediately identified as the best program in their own conference, let alone the country.
Then the magic began.
Williams turned two of those no-name recruits -- a pair of players who were more about drive and intensity than they were about recruiting rankings -- into superstars who could lead the Terps to previously unreachable heights.
He found both of them in his backyard. Juan Dixon was from Baltimore, a too-skinny player with a sad history. Lonny Baxter was from Silver Spring, Md., a player whose issue had always been being too big instead of too thin.
He found others to complement them: Byron Mouton, a transfer from Tulane. Steve Blake, a non-scoring point guard who helped Williams transform his up-tempo philosophy into a half-court game. Chris Wilcox, a North Carolina native who was shunned by his home-state schools because of their concern over his grades and academic motivation.
Those players took the Terps to the Final Four in 2001, breaking the ceiling that had hovered over the program far too long. They looked like they were finally going to make it over the final hurdle, right up until they let a 22-point lead slip through their hands. Against Duke, which it played for the fourth time in three months, of all possible opponents.
Maybe that's what created the relentlessness of last season for the Terps, knowing they could have -- should have -- gone further the year before.
Whatever it was, Williams and his team put together the best season in school history last season.
And it wasn't just because the Terps managed to beat Indiana for the national title. It was a year-long domination that relied on the scoring of Dixon, the playmaking of Blake and the leadership of Baxter.
The Terps ended Duke's five-year reign over the ACC regular-season standings with a 15-1 record.
The Blue Devils outplayed Maryland in Durham, N.C., in January, but by mid-February, the Terps were a better team, sending Duke home with an 87-73 loss.
Maryland was ousted from the ACC Tournament before it could have a third meeting with the Blue Devils, but the Terps insisted that loss to N.C. State didn't matter. As the No. 1-seeded team in the East Region -- another school first -- they had bigger goals on their mind.
That turned out to be true. Maryland saved its best basketball for its toughest opponents, sweeping through the NCAA field until it played Connecticut in the Carrier Dome in Syracuse. That's when Maryland had to rely on the clutch shooting of Blake, a capable but rarely called upon scorer, to get back to the Final Four.
With Duke out of the way, thanks to an Indiana upset, the Terps dispatched Kansas and the Hoosiers to win the national title that had eluded the program for so long.
One of the most amazing things about the Terps' title is that none of the top eight players in the lineup was a McDonald's All-American, the nebulous bellwether for recruiting success. It's a particular point of pride for Williams, who took heat for signing guys like Dixon, Baxter, Drew Nicholas and Tahj Holden.
The thing the Terps had that few college programs have had recently or are likely to have in coming years is three experienced seniors: Mouton was in college for five years, Dixon four and a half and Baxter for four years after a year at military prep school.
Sure Wilcox left school early, but he was always considered the atypical Williams recruit, one who never had to work as hard for recognition or respect as Dixon or Baxter.
It's hard to explain to people outside the ACC just how important Maryland's title is. Though it was the ninth national championship for an ACC school, the Terps are the first conference team outside North Carolina to hang a banner. Duke and North Carolina have three national titles each, and N.C. State has two.
Williams, who became the first head coach to lead his alma mater to the championship since N.C. State’s Norm Sloan did it in 1974, reveled in the victory, maybe more than he showed.
"It's not bad,'' he said, smiling, when asked this summer if he had taken time to sit back and enjoy the accomplishment. "At the same time, there have been a lot of years in the past where we have had to live with losing the last game, where we felt we had a good chance to win. You have to keep all of that in balance. You don't want to change in any way. You don't want to relax in the offseason.
"Just because we won it all last year, it isn't going to change me or my coaching habits.''
And contrary to popular belief -- it was a story oft repeated over the last two years -- Williams hasn't really mellowed. Sure, he appreciates things a little more now that he is a grandfather. But he is still a sideline maniac, one who will snap at players and assistant coaches almost as fast as he will sweat through his suit.
The biggest changes came a few years back, when Williams subtly switched his Terps from being primarily a pressing team to one that mostly played in the halfcourt. That allowed the Terps to succeed in the NCAA tournament, where they had frequently faltered with previous teams.
Now, obviously, is the big challenge: staying at the top of the ACC standings and the national polls after losing four starters off the national championship team.
The party line is that Maryland has four seniors returning to the starting lineup, headlined by point guard Blake and Nicholas in the backcourt, with inside help from Holden and junior college transfer Ryan Randle.
Someone among five sterling recruits will have to step forward to score points for the Terps, whose projected starting lineup averaged only 24.5 points at Maryland last year. The losses are indeed tremendous, but so are the gains, with one of the best recruiting classes in the nation coming in and a buzz about the program that no amount of advertising can buy.
The Terps also have moved into their new home, saying goodbye to historic Cole Field House after a half-century. The new $108 million arena, the 17,100-seat Comcast Center, is a vast upgrade. The Terps' previous home has its place in college basketball history as one of the few on-campus arenas to play host to a Final Four, but like N.C. State's Reynolds Coliseum four years ago, the time had come to say goodbye.
"There was no better place to play a game than at Cole,'' Williams said. "But on the other days of the week, it was an old building. A lot of people didn't have very good offices in here. It's great for the athletic department to have a place like Comcast.''
All of Maryland's athletics administration offices have been moved into the building, which also boasts a huge academic support center. It has a smaller, 1,500-seat gym attached for volleyball, gymnastics and wrestling, and a multipurpose room that will be a vast improvement over the two-cans-on-a-string press room that was featured in Cole.
Like all new sports facilities, Comcast will have luxury suites, a total of 20. But students will retain some of the best seats in the house, taking up the first 10 rows all the way around the court.
"When the Orioles moved out of Memorial Stadium [in Baltimore], everyone said it wouldn't be the same," Williams said. "They were right. It is better in Camden Yards. You don't forget the things about Cole Field House, all the great games there. It served the university well for the last 50 years.
"Hopefully, Comcast will serve the university as well for the next 50 years."
And maybe Williams will be around to see another banner or two unfurled.
STARTERS LOST
C -- LONNY BAXTER (6-8, 15.2 ppg, 8.2 rpg, 2.0 bspg, 28.7 minutes, .545 FG, .623 FT) Like Juan Dixon, Baxter came to Maryland without a big reputation. But during the course of four years, Baxter worked hard enough to become one of the dominant big men in college basketball, even though he hardly fit the mold of a college center.
Baxter went to Hargrave Military Academy in Virginia flabby and out of shape. He spent the year there working against high school sensation Korleone Young, which gave him the incentive to work harder and get into condition.
By the time he had to step into the Maryland lineup, when center Obinna Ekezie was injured, Baxter was fit and ready to contribute. He did so steadily for three years as a starter, developing into a low-post scorer who could occasionally step outside and make a 15-foot jump shot. As a sophomore, he was a first-team All-ACC pick. He dropped to the second team as a junior, but was one of the primary reasons the Terps made the first trip to the Final Four in school history.
He was voted the most valuable player in the West Region that year, then repeated the performance in the East Region last season, becoming one of 10 players in the history of the tournament to win two regional MVP crowns.
"Lonny deserves a lot of credit because he did a lot of things physically to get a lot better,'' Williams said. "He had to lose about 20 pounds, and he had to get stronger. He did both of those things."
Baxter was taken in the second round of the NBA Draft by the Chicago Bulls the 44th player taken. He will join former ACC rivals Jay Williams of Duke and Roger Mason Jr. of Virginia, both of whom were selected by the Bulls in the draft.
SG -- JUAN DIXON (6-3, 20.4 ppg, 4.6 rpg, 2.9 apg, 33.6 minutes, .469 FG, .397 3PT, .898 FT) If anyone ever needed a real reminder of why people turn to sports for inspiration, Dixon should be at the top of the list. He came to Maryland scrawny, seemingly way too frail to compete at the highest level of college basketball. The way we put it in the 19th edition of Blue Ribbon was: "At his size, Dixon may be better suited coming off the bench than ever being a starter. He's just so skinny, you wonder if he can survive one minute on the court during an ACC game, let alone 25.''
Sometimes it's nice to be proven wrong, especially by someone like Dixon. He wasn't highly regarded when he came to Maryland by way of Baltimore's Calvert Hall, but few people knew about the toughness Dixon brought with him after losing both parents to AIDS while he was in high school. He turned to his brother, a Baltimore police officer, for guidance and simply became one of the best players ever produced by the ACC. He never looked the part, looking as frail when he cut down the nets on Maryland's first national championship as he did when he first arrived on campus in January 1998.
"A lot of people counted me out before I ever got here,'' Dixon said at the Final Four. "Not having my parents around makes it a little harder. But I stayed strong. I had my extended family. I had coach [Williams] to help me develop as a person and also as a basketball player.''
Dixon ended his career as the school's all-time leading scorer with 2,269 points. He was the school's first three-time first-team All-ACC pick since John Lucas in the 1970s and joined Len Bias as the only player in school history to win the ACC Player of the Year Award, which Bias won in 1985 and '86.
He also became the first player in NCAA history to score 2,100 points, make 300 3-pointers and accumulate 300 steals, a remarkable testament to his versatility.
The Washington Wizards made Dixon the 17th pick in the 2002 NBA Draft. Some people may wonder if he is big enough, strong enough or durable enough to survive in the NBA. Williams will never doubt that Dixon is capable of anything.
"He did everything that could done in college basketball, includin win a national champion," Williams said. "To be a first-team All-American certainly says volumes about Juan. The great thing about Juan is as he got more attention and had more success, it didn't change his work ethic. He just seemed to work more as he got more attention."
SF -- BYRON MOUTON (6-6, 11.1 ppg, 5.0 rpg, 2.1 apg, 28.3 minutes, .469 FG, .255 3PT, .767 FT) When Mouton transferred from Tulane to Maryland three years ago, he went from being the top scorer on a decent team to a role player on a national power. It's not a move a lot of players, especially ones who like to shoot as much as Mouton, like to make.
Many would rather score a lot of points for a good team than do the little things that help a good team win. What always struck Williams was the fact that Mouton was willing to make that move.
Mouton was a versatile defender and an important player for three seasons, one as a practice player during his sit-out season and two as a player, because he made all the hustle plays coaches love.
"We would miss a shot, it would be going out of bounds, and somehow he would get it back,'' Williams said. "We would get another shot. It's hard to put a value to that. But I know that we don't win the NCAA Championship without Byron Mouton on the team.''
PF -- CHRIS WILCOX (6-10, 12.0 ppg, 7.1 rpg, 24.1 minutes, .504 FG, .585 FT) Just when Williams was beginning to get excited about how good his team could be again this year with Wilcox as its centerpiece, Wilcox decided to cash in on his potential and declare early for the NBA.
His primary reason? He didn't want to become the second Terence Morris. Morris, projected as a lottery pick after his breakout sophomore season, stayed two more years at College Park and ended up as a second-round draft pick.
It's hard not to blame Wilcox, who played well enough in the Terps' run at the national championship to catch the attention of all the pro scouts.
Williams knew from the beginning that Wilcox had a tremendous upside. But he was frequently lost as a freshman, not even averaging 10 minutes a game as the Terps went to the Final Four for the first time in school history. He did start a few games that season, and showed a few flashes of his vast talent, but not enough to maintain a starting job.
As a sophomore, he stepped into the position vacated by Morris, starting 26 games and averaging 24.1 minutes a game. He became a constant highlight-maker with his massive dunks, but he also proved that he learned the system that so befuddled him the year before.
"Chris made a tremendous improvement physically between his freshman and sophomore year,'' Williams said. "The thing with Chris, he has a tremendous top side. Like a lot of guys, that's what [the NBA people] are looking at: What's he going to be like three years down the road?''
It was obvious that everything clicked for Wilcox throughout the NCAA tournament, as he scored in double figures in five of the six games and led the team in rebounding twice. And he outplayed Kansas' Drew Gooden and Indiana's Jared Jeffries in the Final Four.
"Chris gave us that shot-blocker, that explosive guy inside who could do things once or twice a game that would be worth more than just two points,'' Williams said. "He would get the crowd into the game. He was a very important part of our run during the NCAA tournament. He probably played as consistent during that time as any that he was here."
OTHERS NOT RETURNING
G -- EARL BADU (6-0, 160 lbs, 0.3 ppg, 0.3 rpg, 2.2 minutes, .500 FG, .000 3PT, .000 FT) Badu won a spot on the roster during an open campus tryout in the fall of 1998 and spent four years as a practice player for the Terps, helping the team prepare by mimicking an upcoming opponents' backcourt.
Now in law school, Badu was rewarded during the national championship season with 22 minutes of playing time in a total of 12 games.
PROJECTED STARTERS
PG -- STEVE BLAKE (6-3, 160 lbs., SR, #25, 3.8 rpg, 8.0 ppg, 7.9 apg, 32.0 minutes, .396 FG, .364 3PT, .824 FT, Oak Hill Academy/Miami Lakes, Fla.) Experienced guards win championships, and there are no more experienced point guards in the nation than Blake. He has been a starter for Williams ever since he arrived from Oak Hill Academy, and he has smoothly overseen the Terps' transition from a pressing and running team to one that could succeed in the halfcourt. That difference, more than anything else over the past two seasons, has allowed Williams' team to succeed in the NCAA tournament the past two years.
Already the Terps' all-time assist leader with 724, Blake has a chance to become only the fourth guard in NCAA history to reach 1,000 assists for a career, joining Duke's Bobby Hurley (1,076), N.C. State's Chris Corchiani (1,038) and North Carolina's Ed Cota (1,030). He led the ACC in assists for the second consecutive season, breaking his own school record with 286. His 7.9 assist per game average was the highest in school history.
"Steve Blake has done everything you could ask a point guard to do,'' Williams said.
Well, not exactly. He's never been a big-time scorer, which was the biggest rap against him when he came out in the same high school class as Duke's Jason Williams and Arizona's Jason Gardner. But Blake has always had a knack for making clutch shots, as he did in the East Region final against Connecticut, a 3-pointer that essentially gave the Terps a return invitation to the Final Four. He will be expected to make more of them this year on a team without a proven scorer.
Blake has scored 20 points or more only twice in three years, getting a career-high 21 in the ACC Tournament loss to N.C. State. But he has a better jump shot than he is given credit for, despite his career 39.6 field-goal shooting percentage. His 3-point shooting percentage went down some last year, but he still hit more than 34 percent of his long-range shots and is at 36.4 percent for his career from that range.
"When you play on a team with Juan Dixon and Lonny Baxter and Chris Wilcox and Byron Mouton, there are only so many chances that you can get to take a shot,'' Williams said. "We have always asked Steve to distribute the ball more than anything else, and he is one of the best in the country at doing that.''
SG -- DREW NICHOLAS (6-3, 160 lbs., SR, #12, 7.1 ppg, 2.3 rpg, 2.4 apg, 20.5 minutes, .477 FG, .396 3PT, .803 FT, Long Island Lutheran HS/Hempstead, N.Y.) For two years, Nicholas has filled in wherever the Terps needed backcourt help. He was recruited as a shooting guard, but had the misfortune of playing behind All-America Juan Dixon the past three years.
Some players might have gone looking elsewhere to play, but Nicholas stayed put, providing almost all the backcourt depth two years ago while logging time at the point and both wing spots.
He has been a capable reserve during that time, with a deft shooting touch. Nicholas made at least 30 3-pointers in each of his previous three years, with a career-high 38 last season. And, over the past two seasons, he has made better than 40 percent of his shots from beyond the arc.
"There are few people who can shoot the ball from the 3-point line as well as Drew,'' Williams said. "I think he has a lot of confidence.''
But how will Nicholas' confidence change as he becomes a starter, when he will be counted on to take more shots and to provide more leadership?
Williams thinks he will be fine.
"Drew is going to get his chance,'' Williams said. "If he can really step up, it will be big for us. Drew has been probably as valuable and has made as much of a contribution as anybody in our program in the past two years because we have needed somebody to back up Steve Blake at the point."
By playing all three backcourt spots, Nicholas has improved his ball-handling skills. His 2.4:1 assist-to-turnover ratio compares favorably to Blake's.
SF -- JAMAR SMITH (6-9, 225 lbs., JR., #1 17.9 ppg, 12.8 rpg, Overbrook HS/Alleghany, MD, CC/Sicklerville, N.J.) Smith, the fifth player signed in this large recruiting class, was a power forward in junior college, a trimmed-down, quicker version of Chris Wilcox.
What Williams hopes is that Smith, who showed great range with his jump shot, can step into Byron Mouton's role at the wing forward. All he needs to do is beat out sophomore Mike Grinnon, who rarely played last year, and incoming freshman Nik Caner-Medley, who is expected to contribute immediately.
That will give the Terps a huge front line, even if it is lacking a bit in starting experience.
"With him, it's going to be a matter of how quickly he can become consistent,'' Williams said. "He can run the court, he can handle the ball very well for a guy that big. He already plays like one of our guys because we expect our big men to be able to handle the ball and shoot it. Jamar can do both of those things.''
Williams discovered Smith while scouting current Maryland big man Ryan Randle, who played at the same junior college that produced former Maryland All-American Steve Francis. Smith was a freshman reserve when Williams first saw him, but he blossomed as a junior, leading his team in scoring and rebounding.
"I hope he makes as good a transition as Ryan did,'' Williams said. "You don't always know what to expect with junior college players.''
That's not particularly true with Smith: The Terps will expect a lot of production from him as soon as he steps on campus.
PF -- TAHJ HOLDEN (6-10, 247 lbs., SR, #45, 5.6 ppg, 2.7 rpg,18.5 minutes, .453 FG, .425 3PT, .836 FT Red Bank Regional/Red Bank, N.J.) Nobody is calling Holden soft anymore. That was always the rap about the 6-foot-10 forward when he was in high school in New Jersey, a reputation he earned because of his penchant for shooting from the outside.
"I never saw as much criticism of a player before he even got a chance to practice," Williams said. "He just threw it all in their face.''
Playing beside Lonny Baxter for three years in practice certainly toughened Holden up. He played every game as a freshman and continued to contribute as a sophomore despite missing seven games with a broken foot. He turned in the best season of his career last year, even though the numbers still appear to be modest for a guy who will be counted on so much inside this season.
"Very few teams had a 6-10, 250-pound player coming off the bench,'' Williams said. "There was no drop off in our play when he came off the bench.''
Holden has the outside shot to pull a big man out from under the basket, which should help the Terps.
C -- RYAN RANDLE (6-9, 245 lbs., SR, #33, 3.8 ppg, 3.1 rpg, 9.6 minutes, .524 FG, 1.000 3PT, .563 FT, Duncanville HS/Alleghany CC/Duncanville, Texas) With four starters returning last year from a Final Four team, Williams knew he wasn't going to have a big recruiting year before last season.
Through December, some Terp fans might have wondered if Williams had one at all. That's because neither Randle nor the two high school recruits who came in with him, forward Mike Grinnon and guard Andre Collins, saw much action in the early part of the season.
But Williams knew his frontcourt of Lonny Baxter, Chris Wilcox and Tahj Holden needed some help, and that's why he pursued Randle, who played at the same Maryland junior college that produced former Terrapin All-American Steve Francis.
Randle looked lost early on, as junior college players can do at times. But as the ACC picked up, so did Randle. He still played less than 10 minutes a game, but his contributions were important, especially at the end of the season.
In the NCAA semifinals, when Lonny Baxter played only three first-half minutes because of foul trouble, Randle joined with Chris Wilcox to keep the Terps' national title hopes alive.
"When Ryan came in, nobody was sure exactly just how good he could be for us,'' Williams said. "He turned out to be, by the end of the year, someone you could put in the game and have no worries. He was very dependable.''
Randle will have to be more than just dependable this season. He will have to replace some of Baxter's scoring and rebounding.
"When you come in as a junior college player, you want to make sure you have that senior year that really pays off,'' Williams said. "I think Ryan has the potential to play beyond college, so this will be a big year for him to polish is game.''
KEY RESERVES
G -- CALVIN MCCALL (6-3, 200 lbs., SR, #5, 1.4 ppg, 0.8 rpg, 4.2 minutes, .526 FG, .500 3PT, .500 FT, Dr. Phillips HS/Miami, Fla.) On one hand, McCall did get his national championship ring as a member of the basketball team. But he missed out on the ACC championship and trip to the Orange Bowl with the football team, in one of the most successful seasons in Maryland's athletics history.
McCall was the starting quarterback for nine games in 1999, finishing second in the ACC Rookie of the Year voting. But McCall walked on to the basketball team after football was over and eventually decided to quit football in favor of basically being a full-time basketball reserve.
McCall played more in his first season with the Terps than he has in the past two, but he can contribute at both shooting guard and small forward because of his shooting ability, though he remains a defensive liability.
"We can use his senior leadership this year, as that is important to us because of all the seniors we lost,'' Williams said. "I think Calvin realizes that because of his size, he is going to go against bigger players sometimes. He has to be a great defensive player.
"He has always had the ability to put the ball in the basket. A lot of his potential will depend on his ability to play defense.''
G -- ANDRE COLLINS (5-9, 180 lbs., SO, #2, 2.2 ppg, 0.5 rpg, 0.9 apg, 3.8 minutes, .667 FG, .500 3PT, .778 FT, Crisfield HS/Crisfield, Md. and Hargrave Military Academy/Chatham, Va.) The Terps were dangerously lean in the backcourt the past couple of years and had no real option as a backup for Blake. So Williams recruited the speedy Collins as an insurance policy, hoping he would give the Terps a few consistent minutes and give Blake a chance to catch his breath.
Collins was a scoring machine in high school, but he played only sparingly in his freshman season at Maryland. And, despite Williams' hopes that Collins would spell Blake during the season, Blake's minutes-per-game average went up from his previous two years.
Now, Collins will not only play behind Blake but also will have to compete for minutes with incoming freshman John Gilchrist. Williams says Collins will play a lot of minutes for the Terps, but he will have to improve his ball handling and decision-making to earn them.
"The thing Andre can do is put the ball in the basket,'' Williams said. "There were times in practice where we couldn't stop him. He has to get a little bit more consistent with his ball handling.
"When you are 5-8 or 5-9, you have to do things more right than a guy who is 6-2. Andre got a look at what college basketball is like. He got a chance to play every day against Juan Dixon, like Juan did against Steve Francis when Steve was here. I think Andre is a much better player for it.''
F -- MICHAEL GRINNON (6-6, 195 lbs., SO, #21, 0.4 ppg, 0.3 rpg, 2.1 minutes, .286 FG, .250 3PT, 1.000 FT, St. Dominic HS/Oyster Bay, N.Y.) Playing behind Byron Mouton and Juan Dixon last year didn't leave much opportunity for Grinnon to get on the court during the Terps' run to the national title. He played in only 16 games and made only two shots. He came into Maryland with a reputation as a strong shooter, and there will be plenty of minutes available for whoever steps up at the small forward position. Grinnon didn't really reveal anything last year that might suggest he will be that player, but Williams has an open mind going into the year.
"Mike is going to surprise a lot of players once he gets his opportunity,'' Williams said.
Whenever that might be.
F -- NIK CANER-MEDLEY (6-7, 210 lbs., FR, #15, 36.5 ppg, 15.6 rpg, 4.2 spg, 4.6 apg, Deering HS/Portland, Maine) Some people might say that being called the best basketball player in Maine might be analogous to being the best surfer in Oklahoma: It's a nice honor, but what does it mean?
In the case of Caner-Medley, who led the state in scoring as a junior and senior, it means the possibility of stepping into the starting lineup of the defending national champion. There's plenty of room for him to take over the spot Byron Mouton played for the past two years.
Williams expects Caner-Medley to be the biggest surprise in his recruiting class, a guy who was rated near the bottom of one Top 100 prospects list who will perform better once he gets comfortable playing on the Division I level.
"He scored a lot of points in Maine,'' Williams said. "We'll see if he can do it in Maryland.''
The left-handed Caner-Medley, known as "White Thunder,'' caught the attention of recruiters after he grew five inches before his senior season, opening the way for him to move from shooting guard to small forward.
F -- TRAVIS GARRISON (6-9, 215 lbs., FR, #4, 17.7 ppg, 13.0 rpg, 4.0 bpg, .740 FT, DeMatha HS/Hyattsville, Md.) Just how many great players does Morgan Wootten need to coach in one lifetime? Garrison is the latest to come out of Wootten's legendary program, just in time to take over for NBA early-entry Chris Wilcox.
Ranked among the top 25 prospects in the nation by recruiting analyst Bob Gibbons, Garrison is a active rebounder who quickly will join the Terrapins' inside rotation with Randle, Holden and Smith.
Garrison, who won the most valuable player award in five different tournaments as a high school player, is a rarity for Williams: a big-time player with a big reputation in recruiting circles. He was even a McDonald's All-American, a designation that none of Maryland's top eight players had last year.
"He's a big guy who can shoot the ball,'' Williams said. "I am looking forward to him being part of our front line. One of our keys last year was that we had four big guys that could all play. They were all big people, at least 250 pounds.
"We are looking to be big again this year up front, and Travis will be a part of that.''
Garrison isn't exclusively an inside player. Wootten taught him to step outside and hit the 18-foot jump shot, so he can play facing the basket or with his back to it. He also improved his shot-blocking skills as a high school senior.
G -- JOHN GILCHRIST (6-1, 170 lbs., FR, #11, 20.0 ppg, 8.0 apg, Salem HS/Virginia Beach, Va.) Considered one of the best point guard prospects in the country last year, Gilchrist surprised some recruiting analysts by signing with the Terps. He was long thought to be a lock for ACC rival N.C. State, but Gilchrist seemed to be scared off from that possibility by Herb Sendek's perceived job instability going into last season.
It worked out nicely for Williams, who is excited about letting Gilchrist spend a season going against Blake in practice and learning from Blake how to run the Maryland halfcourt offense.
"He's got a chance to go against a very experienced guard every day in practice, and that will help him,'' Williams said. "He has played at a very high level in high school. I think he is looking forward to the challenge.''
Gilchrist was a four-year starter at Salem High, leading his team to the state Group 3 championship his past three years. He was also the Associated Press Virginia Player of the Year as a junior and senior.
During his final three years, Salem was 69-4 under Gilchrist's guidance.
G -- CHRIS McCRAY (6-4, 180 lbs., FR, #13, 26.8 ppg, 7.9 rpg, 5.3 apg, 2.7 spg, Fairmont Heights HS/Capital Heights, Md.) Here's where recruiting can be tough: McCray already is drawing comparisons to Dixon, who will go down as one of the greatest players in Maryland basketball history. That's a lot of expectation to hang around McCray's neck.
But the similarities are there. McCray is a local product who didn't get much attention nationally, despite his gaudy statistics. He's a skinny kid who doesn't look like he can survive the rigors of the ACC. He's an excellent shooter who made more than 30 percent of his 3-point shots in high school last year, and a hard worker.
"People don't know much about him, but that guy can fill it up,'' Williams said. "He was All-Metro area the last two years here in D.C and he has great range. He can also handle the ball very well. I obviously like shooters -- Juan Dixon reaffirmed that with me -- and this guy can shoot the basketball.''
McCray likely will bide his time behind Nicholas, waiting his turn -- as Dixon did -- for the proper opportunity.
BLUE RIBBON ANALYSIS
The Terps again will have an experienced lineup, with four seniors. But to suggest that collection of seniors, most of whom have been role players throughout their careers, is equal to the four starters who were lost from the national championship team is beyond silly.
That's not to say that Williams can't turn this team into an ACC contender. The league is wide open this year, with Duke and Maryland both rebuilding.
Even with the five new players, the Terps will maintain their place in the upper echelon of the league. They won't, however, be an overwhelming favorite in the league or on the national scene to repeat last year's success.
But they can still contend.
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