Maryland's Coaching Search - DCDuck's Blog

DCDuck's Blog

Maryland's Coaching Search

Posted on May 8, 2011 at 04:51 PM.

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For all the things Gary Williams has done for Maryland, he sure didn't do them a favor timing his retirement when he did. Granted, it could have been a whole lot worse, but it could have been a whole lot better too.

Now Maryland is going to have to find a coach, and the list of good ones who are willing to change jobs now is pretty short, and the list of ones who would keep a similar system in place is even shorter.

VCU's Shaka Smart would have been a fairly obvious choice for a number of reasons:

- Maryland played an up-tempo, pressure-based system under Gary Williams, so there wouldn't be a huge adjustment at least in terms of defensive schemes
- Shaka is already familiar with the mid-atlantic region; College Park is only two hours away from Richmond
- Shaka was an assistant coach under Oliver Purnell at Clemson, so he is already somewhat familiar with the ACC
- Shaka is young, energetic and outgoing, which would be a perfect mesh with a "passionate" Maryland fanbase
- College Park is right smack in the middle of what is widely considered to be the most fertile ground for high-caliber recruits east of Chicago, if not the entire country
- Gary Williams would really stick it to Debbie Yow in Raleigh if the Terps managed to land Shaka Smart
- Football at Maryland is an afterthought, especially with Fridge out the door
- Maryland is bankrolled by UnderArmour, much like Oregon is bankrolled by Nike; huge advantage in terms of recruiting and funds

But the time to make that offer was a month ago. Now VCU has Smart locked in for a long time and if Maryland wants him, they'd have to pay a huge chunk of cash to buy him out.

Another good choice would be Gregg Marshall, but it seems Maryland insists on going after "big name" coaches (Jamie Dixon, Mike Brey... guys who are already in Power Six jobs and have had success).

It'll be interesting to see how this all develops. For now, though, Terps fans are going to be watching with baited breath, hoping they don't end up landing the next Jeff Bzedlik and go from NIT snub to tumbling entirely off of the face of the map.