The Maryland basketball program should be pulling in two top 30 prospects a year. No excuses. Brenda Friesz is doing on the girls side, but Gary is dropping the balls with the men's team. You've got the Comcast Center, playing in the ACC, the Baltimore Washington hotbed corrider of basketball recruits, and a recent National Championship to sell your program. To get two lower tier recruits is unacceptable again after the recent horrible recruiting classes. Just like Brian Billick's time had come, so has Gary Williams. He was awesome for the school for the 90's and early 2000's, but he is a liability now. This program is way underachieving. Time to get some new energy from a young coach who will get out there and challenge UNC and Duke for the top recruits.

Comparing Billick and Williams absurd: the former lost the locker room when his message became tired and fell on deaf ears, while the latter's clearly has not, and the dynamic totally different as a result.

Yes, Williams at times almost too matter-of-fact for today's recruits I grant you, as he is not one to blow smoke up a recruit's six o-clock, but with these two kids his message clearly resonated. Quality kids with upside potential who have bought-in to the program. Give me these type of building block kids as opposed to the one-year and done. In sum, two more key pieces to the puzzle and I like the emerging mosaic.

With today's mid-majors having the impact they are when it comes tournament selection time. Gary is adjusting and with a retooled staff building relationships with the high school coaches, future success seems more than indicated. Clearly he hasn't lost either his fire or passion for the game.

With the current freshman class, this pair, and the class to follow, a plausible case can even be made UM preparing to make deeper runs into the tournament than say the likes of even Duke, given their own emerging pattern of early exits.

I agree with Ebe. For many of our areas top talent, MD is not an option. I can't figure out where the disconnect comes in but clearly it falls on the coaching/recruiting. When schools like Coppin, UMBC, and Towson have better years than MD you know something is up. "Change" Gary...

I for one have not agreed with All that Gary has done but to say he is not getting top recruits is all him is crazy. Yes MD has Comcast but thats it. There is no comparison to facilities in other big schools or the wow factor of Duke and NC. I remember where MD was after the Bob Wade era and am willing to see how this team performs this year before a change is made. Gary had done so much for MD, he deserves more respect than he has been given. Be careful what you wish for!

bryan, you are insane.

"When schools like Coppin, UMBC, and Towson have better years than MD you know something is up."

Give any of those schools the schedule Maryland plays and they'll win 5 games a year.

There is plenty to complain about with the state of the hoops team, just make an argument that makes sense.

ebe - it must be the age thing. I mean, Duke's coach is almost two years younger than Gary, and UNC's is five years younger! It can't have anything to do with the longer history those schools have with sustained successful programs compared to Maryland. Two top 30 prospects a year? That's what the expectations are at Kentucky, Kansas, and UCLA. Maryland has never been at that level as a sustained premier program.

Maryland had basically no history of prominence before Lefty came to College Park. Lefty gave them instant attention, made some big recruiting moves, and built a major program that was consistently good if never getting to the championship level. Of course, that all came crashing down when Len Bias celebrated being drafted by the Celtics with some really good cocaine. Bob Wade took it from bad to worse before Gary took over and righted the ship. Under his watch the program has reached heights never before achieved.

Am I content with preseason projections for the Terps to finish in the bottom half of the ACC? Not at all. I do believe the team should be able to compete for the conference championship every year, but it will never be easy with the top to bottom toughness of the conference, coupled with perennial national powers Duke and UNC. The time will come when it is necessary to make a coaching change but we are not close to that point yet.

Anonymous, I like the way you think. I thnk we have 2, mabe 3, solid freshmen. The 09 class fills the most obvious need. You can teel that the curent sophs put in some work this summer. With a good 10 class we could be back. Go Terps!

Yea, I love all these people who brag about projects because they are not one and done yet every time you turn around, Gary has to backfill for them with JUCO players.

Make the tournament this year Gary or else hit the bricks. Nobody great wants to play for your tired junk anymore and every top recruit, ESPECIALLY all those from Maryland, want to go ANYWHERE BUT College Park.

Yea Andy thats because College Park is College Park. Lets see Florida Campus or MD Campus, NC Campus or MD Campus. My point is that Gary is at a disadvantage because of the school. We are lucky to get who we get and Gary has proven he can compete. I always love the folks who say get rid of Gary. Who you going to replace him with before you start shouting for his head!
I think this class has some good potential. Guard play willl be very good, need someone to step up inside.

If a recruit thinks Gainesville is a plus over suburban DC, he probably can't qualify anyway. Gainsville is middle of redneck, bible belt, EBF Florida.

No excuse for not even being competitive in your own backyard.

Matt- Would you think that the most important signing for the terps would be to make sure they lock down Roscoe Smith? If he is at all interested. That is why it is imperitive that the win this year and next. Have you spoken with him? What do you know? They have not had a player rated that high ever I think. Mike Jones was #2 sg behind Lebron I think. Garrison and Booth were Mcdonalds AAs but I do not remember there rival ranking.

To all-
When selecting a college to attend, did any of you take geography into consideration? I wanted to get away and have more freedom, so College Park had a negative mark against it from the start. I'm sure some of these young kids are thinking the same thing. It's absurd to think that just because a kid is from MD that he dreams of playing for the Terps. Some do, some don't.

Gary deserves a bit of latitude after all he's done for the program and university. He brought the program back from the depths of a near-death penalty probation to the pinnacle of the sport. And from the outside looking in, he is man of integrity.....good ol' Woody didn't have any influence (or job prospects) at MD, so he pulled Gilchrist from MD and shopped him to South Florida so he could get a job running a VCR for Stan Heath. I don't want my program selling out its integrity for players. MD and Gary are better off without them.

Many of you posters are probably too young to remember the early post-Bob Wade years. It's these nearsighted bloggers/"fans" that I take issue with. If not for Gary and Walt Williams, this program would be virtually extinct.

Ryan -- Smith would obviously be a huge recruit for the Terps (and the highest rated), but I'd probably call Isaiah Epps the most important target for 2010 because point guard's a bigger need than small forward, and it's tough landing top-flight guys at that position. North Carolina, if they offer, will be the toughest competition for Smith.

i am not a williams booster— BUT
we wouldn't even be having this conversation if two of his big men didn't opt out on the program at the last minute. the recruiting on williams and padgett didn't start last week. we can all guess that he's been grinding on these kids since january or sooner. its a safe bet to guess that they were supposed to be just the backups to the star front line he intended to have.

gary williams is slowly building a label as a polarizing figure. he has national recognition for recruiting, but all too frequently recruits mention in interviews or press conferences right after they've chosen another school that gary williams didn't seem to want them directly and didn't put in any kind of face time. that's troubling. the unaccounted for effect is the john gilchrest point guard thing a few years back. how many star-type players saw what happened when he was benched/etc. and felt that gary was completely in the wrong. if he did that to a star player who led the team and was on MANY NBA draft boards before the incident- how does that impact a high schooler. they watch the terps as well, believe me. if i am a top recruit, and i know that williams is going to curse at me at me all season and more importantly restrict and potentially damage my chances of making it to the NBA, then my consideration for the terps is over. he is a solid coach, but a serious potential killer just on that experience alone. they should actually bee grateful that they signed mosely. what we don't forget though is rudy gay, kevin durant, carmelo anthony and so on never in a terps uniform.

he needs to change his approach and loosen the reins. the 'calmer more approachable gary williams' needs to be permanent, not an occasional monthly attitude.

I had a priviledge to do business with former baltimore standout Dante Greene. Point blank, he said he wanted to come to Maryland but Gary told him that he wasn't going to recruit him because Gary thought that Dante wasn't going to stick around 4 years. Dante said his dream was to put on that Maryland jersey. How crazy is that??? Gary needs to change with time. Syracuse assistant who recruited Dante also told me that UCONN and Syracuse have a inside joke between them. They'll each take turn every other year to take the best player out of Maryland. There's no excuse for this. Gary needs to realize that he's no bigger than the program. That's where the problem lies. Dante also noted that there were many Baltimore players who wanted to attend Maryland but didn't because of Gary...ie Carmelo Anthony...just to name one.

I've heard that some recruits don't want to play in that Flex scheme that Maryland uses -- particularly big men. And Gary's emphasis on defense over offense surely scares some young guys away. Why would a Kevin Durant or a Rudy Gay want to spend a year or two getting yelled at for not playing defense? That's not going to earn them their future paycheck.

Still, a lot of it is in the relationships with the area high school, AAU, and JC coaching community. Maryland's always had trouble getting certain big-time players out of Baltimore, and that hasn't changed much.

Matt or anybody for that matter:

Does anybody have any updates about 2010 recruits Buie and Epps?

These guys seem like they could be the type of recruits that re-energize the fan base and give Gary Williams renewed credibility.

Hey there people...

Do you remember who we won the National Championship with? Were any of those players highly recruited? No. Stayed four years, developed and had great coaching. Shut up Gary haters.

I was there when gary came in and will always be grateful to him for taking a program at its nadir and giving us a National Championship. Gary has done a lot of good, but has also has his missteps, like most coaches. As for the recruting debate, Fran Fraschilla who worked for Gary said point blank Gray hates it. That's where we miss Dickerson, Hahn, and Patsos. Also, Gary, IMHO has missued/unerdeveloped players like Morris, Ibekwe, and Gist and as far as I'm concerned, he destroyed Mike Jones and is doing the same thing to Tucker now. But, overall he's done a better than average job and barring a complete collpase, should decide on his terms when it's time to go.

right now i would give maryalnds class a B+ if we can get Pete White, jason Ankrah , Munez and Holmes A+ for sure.

if we can get a miracle and get eother Jelani or Austin, A++++++++++++

yeah but could they beat out dave neal for a starting spot? he does bring in 4.2 boards every game! gregory and dupree can't. and they're sophomores!

they were just as highly touted and are taking off like a led balloon.

this IS next year! win now, baby.

will this be the 6th consecutive year without a sweet 16? absolutley unbelievable!

GARY what happened to our proud program??!!