Holy cow! Turgeon out at Maryland
- Thread starter lou v
- Start date
Doubt it. The Maryland fan base has been pushing for this move for a few years now. They believe that they should be a much better program than they are.
Maryland belongs in the ACC. They probably just long for the days of Gary Williams (a Maryland alumn) roaming the sidelines and playing the likes of Duke, UNC etc. Those were the glory years of Terps basketball (Joe Smith, Stevie Francis, a national championship). They never should have left.
Old news. Maryland for sure still pays attention to the ACC but they always felt they were a bastard child in a Carolina league. Lefty Driesell fed that. They have been successful in the Big Ten in all sports other than football - and that should be coming as much as any team could be successful in a league with OSU and Michigan.
I think that's a really good analogy. I bet their fan base thought that they would dominate moving to the BIG which is definitely more of football conference. It's always tough to follow a legend though and I think he did a good job.
There for sure is some unrealistic expectations of Maryland fans but they are not in the class of Indiana which truly had more of a dynasty. Maryland was never Indiana level, just good, but annually could expect to come back to earth in the ACC and Big Ten. No expectations to dominate the Big Ten, just always be perceived as a strong player. They just don't see the same consistency that they enjoyed with Williams and Driesell, although truth be told, Williams was losing a lot of recruiting wars because he refused to play the game. Plus Turgeon while nice enough isn't naturally a charmer. I think Turgeon was losing his edge after 10 years or so and a change of scenery might be good for both he and Maryland.
It's actually a really bad analogy though. Maryland has won 1 national championship in men's basketball. That's tied with 21 other teams for the 16th most overall. Indiana has won 5 men's natty's, which is tied for 4th most overall. Maryland has been to 2 Final Fours ever (in back-to-back years) while Indiana has been to 8. Both fan bases may have overly inflated views of what they "deserve" but they aren't really analogous.
A much better analogy for Maryland would be Arkansas or Arizona or Syracuse.
if the players were chafing under Turgeon, for whatever reason, then they will come out smoking against us.
On the other hand, if Turgeon has something else going on and just had to stop coaching, then Maryland is going to be completely lost against us!
Turgeon had coached Maryland for each of its 7 full seasons in the Big Ten.
They made the tournament in 6 of those seasons.
Before Maryland he had Texas A&M for 4 years and made the NCAA each year.
For an NU fan like me, thats pretty darned good.
The analogy is not about history. It’s not about dumping a coach that, for me, is good, as Indiana did not have one of those. It’s just about the inflated sense of self.
I really don’t understand this Turgeon thing. Something is weird, the timing tells us so. Makes no sense. We might find out what happened, we might not. But the story was not that they just decided to part ways.
They were preseason #21 yet they’re 5-3 with a couple bad losses. The fans have been dogging him for years and think he underachieves (especially post season). I think fan discontent had come to a head; people were heckling him all game, out in public, etc. I think it had just gotten miserable and the rough start to the year made it worse.
That was a hell of a game and a wild atmosphere. Except for a no-call by the refs on a Juice layup against DJ White, ‘Cats would have sprung the upset.
I get it, but if programs and fans having an inflated sense of self is the analogy, there are precious few D1 programs that aren't an analogy.
I think it is bad just as it is in other areas of society. Mob rule often ends up as something very ugly