ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Everyone loves a winner, right?
Certainly around College Park today, there's not much debate about who exactly is the hot-shot coach around campus. The name isn't Ralph and it isn't Gary. It's Brenda.
Across the nation, though, women's basketball fans, coaches and observers don't always embrace a winner. That's what happens when we reach the postseason. When only four teams are left standing, you can bet many of the others are back home griping.
Brenda Frese is in just her fourth year coaching the Terps. She carried the women's program to grace as quickly as the school's men's program fell from it. Top-ranked recruiting classes, NCAA tournament invitations and now the creme de la creme - Maryland's proud return to the Final Four.
It's success that's worth celebrating - but not everywhere. The world of women's basketball can be a petty, jealous place. It's a sorority house for grown-ups - who don't always act like grown-ups.
If you scroll the Internet or listen to the whispers, you'd find it easy to discredit Frese's success. She didn't pay her dues, they say; she doesn't play by the rules; and she doesn't deserve this success - all charges stained with envy, with few traces of veracity.
As the Terps began their push for the NCAA tournament, a tip landed at the NCAA home office. Someone - the person's exact identity isn't publicly known - thought the NCAA should look into Maryland's recruiting practices.
NCAA investigators showed up on campus last month and spoke with some of the Terps' players. Thus far, nothing has come of it. The NCAA hasn't even submitted a letter of inquiry to school officials, usually the first step in any formal investigation.
Reason suggests that if the NCAA even suspected Frese had broken rules, it wouldn't be waiting until after the tournament to begin an investigation.
Though Maryland hasn't been notified that its program is in the clear, team officials are refusing to give the charges too much thought. They're wise to focus on basketball. If this all blows over, that's all the history books will remember.
"I stay focused on the positive," Frese says. "I'm really focused on this team and us having a special season. Our players and our staff have done so much hard work. You can only control what you can control."
