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We joke about this all the time on #CollegeSportsTwitter, but behind the jokes lies a basic truth: Maryland did not win a title for the Big Ten in 2002. It won a title for the ACC. That is not a Big Ten memory. That is an ACC memory.
Gary Williams did coach at Ohio State, but he is not a Big Ten legend, as much as you might chuckle at the thought. He is an ACC legend. Maryland came through the fires of ACC competition to win its national title in 2002, and though that national championship game against Indiana was roughly as awful as Butler-Connecticut nine years later in 2011, Maryland’s larger path to that championship recalls Virginia’s first men’s basketball national title, won on Monday night in Minneapolis against Texas Tech.
No, of course Maryland’s run through the 2002 tournament did not involve any of the close shaves Virginia experienced. On a micro level, Maryland’s 2002 NCAA Tournament was substantially and dramatically different from Virginia’s 2019 run, “The Cardiac Cavs.” When comparing Maryland’s first national title to Virginia’s, I am speaking more about the long journey it took to get there.
Gary Williams came to College Park in 1989. He had to take his lumps in his first four seasons, patiently putting in place the vision and the personnel he needed. His fifth team at Maryland, in 1994, got into the NCAA Tournament and, as a 10 seed, reached the Sweet 16 before running into the remnants of the Fab Five at Michigan. Finally off the ground, Maryland established itself as an annual NCAA Tournament team. The program was able to build itself back to a higher standard. Top-four seeds became commonplace and expected. This is how programs get to the Final Four after knocking on the door for several seasons.
In 2001, that door finally opened. Williams reached the Holy Grail in his 12th season on the job with the Terrapins. Yet, in that Final Four, Maryland blew a 22-point lead against Duke in the national semifinals. That kind of loss could have set back the program. It was — in its own way — Maryland’s UMBC moment for Virginia. It wasn’t a 1 seed losing to a 16, but it was traumatic. Few leads that big have ever been squandered at the Final Four, before or since. It was not an easy loss to get past.
Yet, much like Virginia in 2019, Maryland in 2002 climbed to the top of the sport. It owned the past and then moved beyond it, bringing the first title to College Park which Lefty Driesell — a bitterly unlucky coach — could never attain. Maryland won that 2002 title 28 years after Driesell’s best team lost the iconic 1974 ACC Tournament final to North Carolina State, one of the greatest and most important games in college basketball history. That game led to the expansion of the NCAA Tournament field to include more at-large teams. That game gave us the 64-team field in 1985 and, by extension, the 68-team field we have today.
It came from Maryland playing an ACC Tournament game. ACC, not Big Ten.
Virginia’s 2019 national championship reminds us of what ACC fans used to have in 2002: Duke-Maryland epics, UNC-Maryland battles, UVA-Maryland street fights. It remains a great loss to not have Maryland in the ACC. That is where Maryland still belongs, much as Connecticut belongs in the Big East.
College sports realignment doesn’t matter as much relative to programs such as Rutgers or BYU, but for Maryland? This school belongs in the ACC, and that feeling is as strong as it has ever been — and today, in the wake of Virginia’s title, maybe even stronger.
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