University of Virginia Library

Relief Picking

Maryland - The Team The ACC Loves To Hate

ANOTHER ACC BASKETBALL SEASON, one more
disappointing and confusing than most, has ended for all but
two of the league's teams. League champ N.C. State, owner of
a perfect 27-0 record and ranked as the second-best in he
country, is not one of the two teams still alive. A probation
slapped on the Wolfpack by the NCAA has ended State's
season with its prohibition of championship or other
postseason play. Still remaining alive, then, are North Carolina,
entered in New York's National Invitational Tournament, and
Maryland, the ACC's surrogate representative in the NCAA
title playoffs.

Maryland will face Syracuse in Thursday night action as the
NCAA Eastern Regionals begin in the Charlotte (N.C.)
Coliseum Coach Lefty Driesell's Terrapins have already met
and defeated the Orangemen in the Terps' own Maryland
Invitational Tourney with the game not being as close as
Maryland's final ten-point margin might indicate. Should they
take Syracuse, Maryland would then advance to Saturday
afternoon's regional finals against the winner of the
Providence– Penn contest and hopefully lose.

YES, I SAID "HOPEFULLY LOSE." Putting aside
basketball ability for the moment, the ACC could not have
sent a worse representative to any national tournament than
the Maryland basketball team. Never have I seen a major
college basketball outfit conduct itself in the classless,
obnoxious, anal manner that the Terps employed during the
season and down in Greensboro. The antics of Terp "bench
jockeys" Rich Porac and Billy Hahn are well-known by now
but the Maryland "dynamic duo" reached a peak (or a valley)
of sorts in the tournament and had their example followed by
the rest of the squad.

Maryland's bench is quite a show during any game but
down in Greensboro they had photographers from everywhere
from Sports Illustrated to the Gastonia Gazette amazed at
their actions and slavering over prospective "animal shots."
The Terrapin players fought on the bench with each other and
with the fans unfortunate enough to sit behind them. No one
was safe from the verbal blasts of Porac who took immense
delight in both celebrating Maryland successes and ridiculing
the efforts of teams like Clemson and Wake Forest against the Terps.

State center Tom Butleson and Terp guard John Lucas
were the front-running candidates for the Everett Case Award,
voted on by the seven ACC coaches and given to the tourney's
Most Valuable Player, Burleson won. While the TV cameras
and the eyes of the crowd were on "Tall Tommy" as he
accepted his plaque at center court the Maryland players put
on quite a show. Almost all refused to watch the ceremony,
most turning their heads away in anguish. One shook his fist at
Burleson, another spit on the floor. Loud shouts of "We want
Lucas" from Maryland fans marred what must have been the
happiest moment in Burleson's young life.

"COACHING" THIS TEAM, at least nominally, is Mr.
Driesell. Any control this man has over his athletes is not
apparent to the naked eye. At times Lefty seems so wrapped
up in his sideline contortions and panegyrics that the actual
playing of the game seems somehow to elude him. In a
tournament that featured hustling, pull out the stops
basketball from six squads only Maryland could be seen with
players walking from one end of the court to the other and
players hurling both dirty looks and obscenities at teammates
when they felt they weren't being passed to often enough.

It is only a testament of the outstanding natural ability of
the Maryland players that they are able to win in this sort of
environment. Even so, to reach the NCAAs they had only to
defeat Clemson and Wake, the sixth and seventh seeded teams
in the tourney. On Friday night the Terps were forced to the
limit by the surprising Deacons and were treated to the
spectacle of almost the entire non Maryland Greensboro crowd
rooting against them. Paul Attner, college basketball scribe of
the Washington Post and a bit of a Maryland cheerleader, was
even moved to write that "Maryland has replaced the departed
South Carolina Gamecocks" as the team ACC fans love to
hate.

THE TRUTH OF THIS STATEMENT is undeniable and
the fault lies totally with Maryland. An infusion of a little class
into the Terp program could result in Maryland's enjoying the
league-wide respect and pride the ACC fans feel for a team like
North Carolina and, to a lesser extent, the mad recruiters at
N.C. State. The spectacle of the Greensboro crowd rooting for
Wake, a team certain to lose in the first round, over Maryland
was astounding. ACC fans want strong representation in these
tourneys and they'd like to be proud of a talented team like
the Terps. Maryland, however, makes it impossible. It was Go
Wake, it will be Go Syracuse, Go Providence, Go Penn
and, if need be GO UCLA. Beat 'em.