Maryland Update – Things Are Not Going Well (Again)
· Yahoo Sports
When you stop and think about it, it’s really amazing how thoroughly Maryland has disappeared from public consciousness since leaving the ACC.
Visit lebandit.lat for more information.
We’ve nearly forgotten entirely about Maryland, to the point where we didn’t even know they played Georgetown this past weekend.
That’s probably not uncommon. At least in basketball, Maryland was a big fish in the ACC, not to mention a good geographic fit.
In the Big Ten, though, it’s remote from the Midwest core of the conference, let alone the West Coast schools, and Maryland has not competed well. Their average finish in the Big Ten has been between 5th and 6th place. They ran off coach Mark Turgeon, then alienated Kevin Willard, leading to an acrimonious departure, and are now coached by Buzz Williams. Fans were not at all happy with him when he was hired, and were in a state of apoplexy last season when the Terrapins performed poorly, finishing 12-21 and 17th in the conference.
This past weekend’s 86-74 loss to Georgetown probably didn’t help. According to the Baltimore Sun, one fan screamed “I want Turgeon! Bring back Turgeon!” Fat chance of that: like Willard, Turgeon was very unhappy when he left.
On Friday, Maryland hosts #9 Virginia, and after seeing what the ‘Hoos did to #12 Arkansas, that may not go well. In fact, it could be a disaster.
As poorly as basketball has done lately, football is even worse. Maryland fired football coach DJ Durkin after a toxic culture developed and an ugly lawsuit over the death of Jordan McNair, a player who died during practice in 2018.
Mike Locksley took over after that, and in turn was fired in October (interesting fact: Maryland has lost to ranked Big Ten opponents 20 straight times).
And oddly, at least around here, all of this just went under the radar.
Not to Maryland fans, obviously. We saw this Reddit post about fan frustration, which gave us a good insight into how things are going. The poster laments Maryland having students who care more about academics than sports, if you can imagine the nerve, says athletics have declined since Debbie Yow retired, and rips the changes in College Park itself. The poster closed with this: “I am very jealous of those of you who got to experience a real state school. I didn’t go to Maryland for the academics or any of that, I went because I was born here and my family members went to Maryland. I was just talking to an ’01 alum at the Georgetown game and he was telling me all these amazing Midnight Madness stories and tales of riots after Dook games. It‘s a shame, we use to have something here.”
On the bright side, there haven’t been any riots in years, the winter trips to Nebraska to play the Huskers are fun, and the Big Ten money is good.
Go to the DBR Boards to find Blue Healer Auctions || Drop us a line