Nared Doing Better Job for Maryland Than Fans Realize

He has been booed by the fans at Cole Field House at College Park, Md. He has been second-guessed for his decision-making and questioned whether he is experienced enough to be successful in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

This is not a story about Maryland Coach Bob Wade.

This is a story about Maryland point guard Greg Nared.

“Everyone has their opinion, and I have to accept people’s opinions,” Nared said Thursday afternoon before practice. “I’m not going to sit there and argue with anyone. If they don’t believe that I can play at this level, that’s their opinion. But I think I can.”

Just as he received some credit for his play early in the season, when the Terrapins were winning, Nared has shouldered a bit of the blame for Maryland’s recent nine-game losing streak. The streak ended with a deceptively close, 78-66 win over the University of Maryland Baltimore County Wednesday night.

But the truth is, going into today’s game at Georgia Tech (13-6, 3-2) Nared isn’t playing much differently than he did in December. On a Maryland team of many inconsistent players, Nared has been fairly steady.

Running an offense that seems to change with the wind, if not with each game, the senior from Wilmington, Ohio, has done his best to keep the Terps (7-12, 0-6) from sailing hopelessly out of control.

“His game is really to run the ball,” said senior guard John Johnson. “When he’s in a slow-paced game, I think that hurts him. But when you have only six or seven guys, you can’t be running all the time.”

Nared’s statistics are certainly not startling: 7.1 points, 4.6 assists, 3.1 rebounds, 2.8 turnovers and 1.6 steals in 36.3 minutes a game. But considering the circumstances under which last year’s third-stringer became this year’s starter, Nared is doing a more-than-credible job.

“I think Greg has done a very commendable job,” Wade said earlier this week. “It’s evident when he comes out of game and we don’t take care of the ball as well. I’ve very proud of him. He didn’t play a lot last year. He’s strictly a team player.”

Nared, in fact, played a total of 47 minutes last season. Eight of them came in a rare start here against Georgia Tech. Wade wanted Nared to match up defensively with Yellow Jackets off-guard Brian Oliver, who had scored a career-high 25 points and pulled down 10 rebounds in a previous 93-86 victory at Maryland.

“He’s a strong kid,” Nared said of Oliver, who, at 6-feet-4 and 205 pounds, is built along the same lines as his Maryland counterpart. “He goes to the boards extremely hard.”

Oliver finished with 15 points and four rebounds in the second game, a 104-82 Georgia Tech rout. Most of Oliver’s points came after Nared left the game with eight minutes gone, never to return. It was one of the strangest moves by Wade in a season filled with them, and many of Nared’s teammates said it was unfair for him to be thrust into such a high-profile role without much preparation.

“It was kind of like a new experience,” said Nared, who had played seven minutes in Atlantic Coast Conference games before the start and then played a total of two minutes in two ACC games the rest of the season. “It was Coach Wade’s decision.”

Nared suddenly found himself thrust into the spotlight again, and the starting lineup, when last year’s point guard, Rudy Archer, flunked out of school and backup Teyon McCoy, who would have started this year, announced during the fall that he was going to redshirt himself for the 1988-89 season.

“I always knew Greg could play,” said Johnson, who credits Nared for helping him have some big games this year, including a career-high 28 points against UMBC. “We always love to play pickup games, and he could hold his own.”

Not that Nared isn’t without limitations. He is more effective driving to the basket than shooting jumpers, and he often has trouble staying with smaller, quicker guards defensively.

But he is realistic about his abilities.

“I’ve said before, I’m not the type of guard who’s going to score 20 points a game,” he said. “If we win, that’s great. One of the reasons I came to Maryland was to try and win a (ACC) championship ring. If that meant me practicing my butt off to get the other guys ready, that would have been fine. It’s a little different situation now.”

After Maryland’s most recent ACC defeat, a 23-point blowout by North Carolina State Sunday, Nared was asked whether he would rather be playing a lot than winning in a reserve role. “I’d rather be winning, no doubt about it,” he said.

There are no second thoughts that Nared, a former All-State quarterback, should have taken one of the football scholarships he was offered out of high school. Nor are there any hints of disappointment that he will get only one full year as a starter.

“I wouldn’t mind another year,” said Nared. “But I’m not going to be greedy. God blessed me with this opportunity.”

And, despite the boos, the criticism, the second-guessing and the ever-changing Maryland offense, Nared is making the most of it.