Williams Used Love, Billick to Rally Skidding Maryland
3/30/2001 7:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
March 30, 2001
By DAVID GINSBURG
AP Sports Writer
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - A game of H-O-R-S-E, a speech from a Super Bowl champion and lots of love from a coach known for his fiery demeanor.
Those are the elements that brought the Maryland Terrapins out of a nearly disastrous skid and into a Final Four meeting against Duke on Saturday night.
Maryland had seemingly rebounded from a 1-3 start before running into more problems, losing five of six. The disturbing run began with a now-infamous home loss to Duke in overtime and ended at Cole Field House when Atlantic Coast Conference cellar-dweller Florida State beat the Terrapins on Valentine's Day.
With a once promising season on the brink of ruin, coach Gary Williams gathered his players and gave them a figurative hug.
"He was very low key, very calm," assistant coach Billy Hahn recalled Friday. "He said, `It's us against everybody else. Nobody understands except us - not parents, relatives, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, girlfriends.' He looked at each player and said, `Fellas, if we're going to get out of this, it's going to be us."'
Those calming words came from a coach who usually yells and rants at players during games, sweating through his suit by halftime.
"Because of the tough times we had, Gary felt this team needed a little love, encouragement and positive thinking to reinforce the confidence that they were pretty good," Hahn said.
Reserve forward Danny Miller said Williams realized the team's confidence was down and was just trying to pull the Terrapins together.
"There was a lot of tension between everybody, as in, `What's going to happen to the season? What are we going to do?"' Miller said.
Picked in The Associated Press preseason poll as the nation's No. 5 team, Maryland stood at 15-9 and ranked 20th. The team walked off the court to a chorus of jeers following the loss to Florida State, and at that point some wondered if the Terrapins could even reach the NCAA tournament.
"We lost our confidence for a while, we had to get it back," Williams said. "To me, the best thing we've done this year is get it back. A lot of times when you lose it during the season it's difficult."
Instead of panicking during the slump, Williams tried to alleviate the pressure. The coach cut practice short the day before the Terrapins faced Wake Forest on Feb. 17 and ran the team through a game of H-O-R-S-E.
"He laid down the rules, made fun of a few guys, kept everybody loose. He tried to get us to have fun," senior center Mike Mardesich said. "It was a turning point."
The next day, the Terrapins beat Wake Forest on the road by 16. Maryland next played host to North Carolina State, and before the game Williams arranged to have Baltimore Ravens coach Brian Billick say a few words to the team.
Only months earlier, Billick's Ravens had gone five straight games without scoring a touchdown, then rebounded to win the Super Bowl.
"Coach Billick came in and gave a great speech, told us how the situation in Baltimore was similar to what we were going through," Terrapins guard Juan Dixon said. "He motivated us, and ever since then we've been playing our best basketball of the season."
Maryland enters Saturday's NCAA tournament semifinal having won 10 of 11, the lone setback an 84-82 loss to Duke in the ACC tournament. Should the Terrapins cut down the nets Monday night, they will look back on their midseason skid with a wry smile.
"Different people respond to adversity in different ways," reserve guard Drew Nicholas said. "Give credit to Coach Williams. He kind of let us come out of our own little funk."
