COLLEGE PARK — COLLEGE PARK - Each bad Maryland loss these days elicits tortured fan analysis of what went wrong, who is at fault and how it can be remedied.
After Saturday's mortifying 41-point defeat at Duke, the questions raised in blogs and message boards were more pointed than usual, and the criticism was more venomous.
What in the world, fans wailed, has happened to the Terps?
In its seventh season since winning the national championship, Maryland is a victim of high expectations and recent recruiting difficulties, according to interviews with experts familiar with the program. Turnover among assistant coaches has made recruiting even more challenging.
The recruiting problems are evident in this season's freshman class. After losing leading rebounders and double-digit scorers James Gist and Bambale Osby to graduation, the Terps were unable to replace them effectively. Maryland's lack of size was evident in the Duke game, in which the Terps surrendered 21 offensive rebounds and 12 blocked shots in the 85-44 defeat - the worst since head coach Gary Williams arrived in 1989-90.
Williams has often suggested this season - and others - that fans tend to overreact to individual games. He acknowledges that the Terps are undersized but suggests that the gap on this season's team is not his fault.
"We've had [players] that were here for different lengths of time," Williams said yesterday. "The kid [Shane] Clark up at Villanova was turned down for admission here at Maryland. A guy starting at South Florida, [Gus] Gilchrist, was here. He'd be playing now."
Gilchrist, 6 feet 10, who is averaging 10.8 points and five rebounds for South Florida and recently scored 22 points against highly rated Pittsburgh, was due to be a Terrapin.
He asked for his release last summer to try to play immediately at another school outside the Atlantic Coast Conference. Because of ACC rules, he would have had to sit out the first semester of games at Maryland because he had initially signed to play at Virginia Tech.
Maryland also ended its relationship last year with another recruit, Tyree Evans, who told The Sun in May that he was "proud to be a Terp" after being offered a scholarship despite a string of criminal offenses.
Evans, a guard, withdrew from consideration to play for Maryland after media reports detailed his troubled past. Athletic director Debbie Yow said she didn't know at the time that Maryland was recruiting Evans or much, if anything, about his criminal record.
