Williams Gives Maryland Fans Something to Shout About

On the Cole Field House floor late Wednesday night, the Maryland basketball players were locked in an embrace, a regular, rugby-scrum circle of love. Meantime, in the sold-out, knocked-out, rocked-out stands, they were singing, “Aaaa-men, A-men, A-men.” Party time, and don’t wait up.

When Gary Williams, the new coach, walked by the student section after the game, he was trailed by shouts of “Ga-ry, Ga-ry, Ga-ry.” No one had ever chanted “Bob.” (Of course, Bo-ob is a tough chant. Try it.)

In any case, the Bob Wade era at Maryland is officially over. You could tell it on the floor, where the Maryland team was playing defense with unaccustomed ferocity and offense with recognizable design. You could tell it in the stands, where there was the old-time frenzy. Given essentially the same cast Wade put on the floor a year ago, Gary Williams has won more games, more league games, more mind games, more of every kind of game, and in only half a season.

Though it may be too early to suggest that the long siege at Maryland is finally at end, it is not too early to predict as much. We know this: In one game, Williams accomplished what Wade never did: He beat North Carolina.

Beating Carolina is cause for celebration, not just in College Park, but wherever it may come. This is not like knocking over some Central American country, after all. Beating Carolina is overcoming history. Beating Carolina is more than you can hope for, all you can pray for. When any team beats North Carolina, the party follows and doesn’t end until at least the next game.

And so, let the good times roll. There’s no point, if you’re from Maryland, in taking a harder look. But at Carolina, they have to. There’s something strange going on, other than just a loss to the Terps. What’s really strange is this North Carolina team.

It’s so, well, so very average.

It is so unranked (no Carolina team since 1970 has ended a season that way). It doesn’t make half its shots. It is slow.

The players, high-school All-Americans all, of course, are lost in the famed Smith system. Once, there were stars who had to sublimate their talents to fit in (Dean Smith is the punch line to the old joke: Who’s the only person who could hold Walter Davis to 15 points?). Now, there are no such stars.

Where are the traps? The backdoor cuts? The precise passing? The killer defense?

Suddenly, the Tar Heels don’t have the people. Early in the first half against Maryland, King Rice, who plays point guard, the position Dean Smith made famous, dribbled a ball off his foot. It was the start of a series of misplays nearly too painful to watch. And the way to beat Maryland Wednesday was to pressure Walt Williams, a delightful, 6-foot-8 point guard, who can make a game exciting for either side. But Carolina couldn’t do anything with him but watch him score 33 points.

That North Carolina came back in the end can be attributed, in equal parts, to history-steeped Carolina belief and to Maryland’s game-ending prevent defense. The effort made Smith happy. Nothing else did.

“This is a learning experience,” he would say after the game. “But we have to start doing it, not just learning.”

Losing is learning at North Carolina, which is about to pass Kentucky to become the winningest team of all time. The Tar Heels finished the last decade with nine consecutive top 10 finishes, capped by at least a Final 16 showing in the NCAA Tournament. And now this North Carolina team, picked first preseason, as usual, is 10-6 and suffering.

The players are confused. No, they’re dumbfounded.

What in the name of Michael Jordan is going on?

“I think the problem is we’re trying to get better all at once,” said Rick Fox, who is Carolina’s best player. “We need to concentrate better on what we’re doing each game.

“I think there’s a certain amount of pressure to live up to the North Carolina tradition. Right now, we’re trying to build Rome in an hour.”

For years, Smith has been a selective recruiter, going after only those players who have a chance both to graduate and, for 30-odd nights a year, to be otherworldly. In the past few years, he has missed on some of the players he wanted. And one he got, J.R. Reid, he was happy to leave a year early for the pros after last season. And so, he is left with a team that doesn’t have a great shooter, that can’t play the trap, that is missing the usual ball-handling, that makes mistakes. It is what happens to every program, except that it has never happened to Smith.

“This is hard,” said senior center Scott Williams. “But the season isn’t over. There is a lot still to salvage.”

The usual salvage job at North Carolina is making up for losing the ACC tournament by trying to make the Final Four. This year, for the first time in what seems like forever, Carolina is not a sure thing to even make the NCAA Tournament. Try believing that. You know they can’t in Chapel Hill.

Dean Smith must have trouble with the concept. He is a good and honest man who stands for everything that is right in college sports. And, from all reports, he is having, even by Carolina standards, a terrific recruiting year.

But for now, it’s Maryland doing the celebrating. And Smith who’s having to say, as he did the other night, “No one’s responsible for the way we’re playing -- except me.”