"I understand it. You're supposed to be good every year," he said. "[But] that's all I can do. I can present what we've done." That includes all three seniors from the past season graduating and the lone senior for the coming season, Dave Neal, on pace to graduate on time next year - all confirmed by school officials and all due to vastly improve the sorry graduation-rate and academic progress rate numbers of recent cycles.
Still, it was easy for the weary Terps faithful to jump to conclusions as news trickled out Tuesday afternoon. The kid, again, hadn't done anything beyond practicing with the team - what in the world happened? Which quickly expanded to: What did Gary do this time? What on Earth is going on over there?
The only thing going on this time is a player wringing as much eligibility as possible out of his career. The Atlantic Coast Conference denied his, and the school's, request for that extra year, and denied the appeal. As it turns out, Maryland offered to let him delay his debut an extra semester, until fall 2009, to give him three full seasons instead of 2 1/2 . He passed, taking his chances with the NCAA to waive its transfer rules and get him four full years to play.
