Juan Dixon

Juan Dixon, Maryland's all-time leading scorer, has tested positive for the steroid nandrolone, his Spanish team Unicaja announced. The Baltimore native took the drug test in Greece in November, before he joined the Malaga-based team, Unicaja said on its Web site. Dixon, who went to Calvert Hall, was informed of the positive result several days ago, and the International Basketball Federation decided to suspend him on Friday. His suspension is indefinite until further notice.

- The 2002 Maryland basketball season could hardly have arrived quickly enough for Juan Dixon. The guard and his teammates had lost a 22-point lead to Duke in the 2001 Final Four. "We had a bad taste in our mouths the whole offseason," said Dixon, who is part of an eight-member class being inducted into the Maryland Athletics Hall of Fame on Friday. "Losing that game to Duke, we knew for sure going into that final season that we had a great chance of winning. We knew that (forward)

Former Terps men's basketball star Juan Dixon headlines the Class of 2012 for the University of Maryland Athletics Hall of Fame, officials announced Friday. Dixon, Maryland's all-time leading scorer with 2,269 points, was the Most Outstanding Player in the 2002 NCAA tournament after leading the Terps to the national championship. Football player Paul Vellano, father of current Terps defensive lineman Joe Vellano, field hockey player Carla Tagliente and women's lacrosse players Jen Adams and Sarah Forbes, as well as former baseball coach Tom Bradley and former women's lacrosse coach Cindy Timchal, will also be inducted into the Hall of Fame on Friday, Oct. 5, during a ceremony at Riggs Alumni Center.

Kevin Williams isn't prone to making comparisons, especially when they involve his son. But the father of Mount St. Joseph guard Kam Williams perked up during a conversation one year ago with Ohio State assistant men's basketball coach Dave Dickerson . Dickerson, a former Maryland player and Terps assistant from 1996-2005, “checked out [Kam Williams] and told me he reminded him of a young Juan Dixon ,” Kevin Williams said. “But with more athleticism. And better handles.

In a performance that would have made his namesake proud, Juan Dixon ran a determined and competitive race yesterday at Laurel Park. Juan Dixon, named after the former University of Maryland standout and current member of the Washington Wizards, nearly wired the field in the eighth race but was caught by Gimmeawink in the final furlong and finished second in the $26,000 allowance race. Juan Dixon, ridden by Clinton Potts, paid $5 to place and $3.40 to show. Originally named Chapel Garden, Juan Dixon (the horse)

The biggest overachiever in Maryland basketball history -- maybe in the modern college game -- is trying to beat the odds again. At age 33, a decade after leading the Terps to the NCAA men's championship, three years removed from his last NBA game and now rehabilitating an injured left knee, Juan Dixon is plotting his comeback. "Don't count me out," Dixon said Thursday in his first extensive interview since being banned in February 2010 from playing in Europe after failing a drug test the previous season.

ATLANTA - Gary Williams has never had an easy time saying goodbye to his seniors. He usually cries after giving them a final sendoff at Maryland's annual men's basketball postseason banquet, and count on Williams to let the tears flow when that time comes next month. After all, look where the older guys have taken the old coach. As the Terrapins prepare for their second straight splash in the NCAA tournament's Final Four, beginning with tomorrow night's semifinal date with Kansas, they are fortified by a veteran squad led by a senior class that Williams has called the best ever to grace the university.

ALL OVER Maryland these days, young people admire Juan Dixon, a Baltimore kid with a talent for life and for survival. Yes, of course, he's a basketball player, an athlete of grace and instinct. He and his Terrapin team may be headed for a national championship. But Mr. Dixon has already won a bigger game - a game that took the life of Derrick Lemell Breedlove, a young man whose promise seemed, if not Dixonesque, sufficient to get him an education and a chance at life. Juan Dixon grew up the hard way. Both his parents were addicted to drugs.

ATLANTA -- The questions regarding Juan Dixon evolved along with the fifth-year senior. 1996: Why is Gary Williams wasting a scholarship on a 140-pound kid from Calvert Hall? 1999: This is the guy who's going to replace Steve Francis at shooting guard? 2002: Is Dixon the best basketball player ever at the University of Maryland? Now that you've cleaned up that coffee spill and choked down that bite of bran muffin, step back and really reconsider the case of Dixon. If NBA potential is your yardstick, he lags behind a pack that's led by John Lucas, Joe Smith and the late Len Bias, but if a performance in college is the criterion, then Dixon looks large.

NEW ORLEANS - Look at Juan Dixon and Carmelo Anthony and what you'll see are polar opposites. Dixon was a skinny over-achiever who spent four years in college, and he willed himself to stardom when the doubters were lining up to tell him he would never make it. Anthony is gifted, lanky, 6-foot-8 star who oozes talent and makes the game look effortless. Most people figured he would skip college basketball entirely for the NBA after a standout high school career at Towson Catholic and Oak Hill Academy, and the closest he would get to the Final Four was watching it on television.

When the Maryland men's basketball team won its national championship 10 years ago, it was uniquely different than a lot of those won during that era. The Terps , who finished 32-4 in 2001-02, had no superstars on the roster, and three of the starters - center Lonny Baxter, guard Juan Dixon and forward Byron Mouton - were seniors, a rarity then and even more so now. It was a collection of role players led by the gritty, veteran trio...

The biggest overachiever in Maryland basketball history -- maybe in the modern college game -- is trying to beat the odds again. At age 33, a decade after leading the Terps to the NCAA men's championship, three years removed from his last NBA game and now rehabilitating an injured left knee, Juan Dixon is plotting his comeback. "Don't count me out," Dixon said Thursday in his first extensive interview since being banned in February 2010 from playing in Europe after failing a drug test the previous season.

Steve Blake has carved together what is now a nine-year NBA career by feeding the ball to a list of All-Stars - from Antawn Jamison and Gilbert Arenas in Washington, to Allen Iverson and Carmelo Anthony in Denver, to LaMarcus Aldridge in Portland and, for the past two seasons, to Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles. Though the lights are much brighter now and Blake, as a steady and much sought-after point guard, has parlayed his skills into his current four-year, $16 million contract with the Lakers, it is not much different than the role he played during his four seasons at Maryland . Back then, the stars were named Juan Dixon, Lonny Baxter and Chris Wilcox.

Whether it was beating Illinois and Duke when he was a sophomore or Connecticut in the East Regional final to keep his college career alive, Juan Dixon always had a flair for the dramatic, and the final three-pointer of his magnificent run at the University of Maryland went down as the biggest shot of the 2002 Final Four. There was no doubt that the senior from Calvert Hall would be named the Most Outstanding Player at the climax of the college basketball season, not after he cooled off a surging Indiana team with two clutch baskets that seemed to soften the hardened Hoosiers.

Editor's note: Each week, InsideMdSports.com provides this blog with a Maryland recruiting feature that previously appeared as premium content on its site. Suitland guard Roddy Peters has made it clear he'd like to play for the University of Maryland, and with a scorching start to his junior season, he's doing his best to make the Terps' coaching staff take notice. Peters, a 6-4 guard who averaged 16 points as a sophomore, has made the transition to the point and it's paid off to the tune of 26.8 points, 8.3 assists and five rebounds per game in Suitland's 6-2 start.

To celebrate the 10 th anniversary of the Maryland men's basketball national championship in 2002, the Terps will welcome back four of the five starters from that team for the program's annual “Maryland Madness” this Friday at Comcast Center. Juan Dixon, Steve Blake, Byron Mouton and Chris Wilcox, are expected to play in the alumni game that starts at 10:30 p.m, according to a Maryland news release. Johnny Rhodes, Mike Grinnon and Dave Neal are also planning to play. The 40 th Maryland Madness is set to start at 9:30 p.m. and will include performances by the university's spirit team, pep band and dance squad.

WASHINGTON - After a Washington Wizards practice last week, Steve Blake stepped to a spot where a group of television, radio and newspaper reporters could interview him about his transition from Maryland floor leader to NBA rookie. As he stepped in front of the cameras, Blake was wearing a white jacket trimmed in sky blue, the colors of North Carolina, one of the Terps' hated rivals. After reporters apprised him of the grief he would endure if he were seen in public wearing Carolina blue, Blake took off the jacket to reveal a shirt with black and red, colors more palatable to Maryland fans.

The rest of the country considered Houston's win over UTEP in the Conference USA tournament to be an upset. After all, UTEP had won 16 games in a row and was ranked 25th nationally. But Houston coach Tom Penders said the win was not an upset. I profiled Penders and Houston in today's paper. Here are some quotes not in the article. "I told the team going into the playoffs that we had the best team in the conference. We had beaten UTEP in the regular season," Penders said. Prior to the title game, the team had battled injuries.