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Winning the big one
By Dan Patrick
Every team at every level in every sport has at least one special opponent. Even during a down cycle, if you beat team X, you've had a good year. Cowboys-Redskins. Auburn-Alabama. Ohio State-Michigan. Yankees-Red Sox. Even Agassi-Sampras, when you think about it.
|  | | Gary Williams is tired of his Terps playing second-fiddle to Duke in the ACC -- and nationally.
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In ACC basketball, it's Duke and everybody else. As a coach, if you beat Duke you're on top of the world. Tickets and T-shirts get sold, your school leads "SportsCenter" that night, the program gets some publicity, the alumni are ecstatic and the players start listening and believing. It's a great tonic.
Nobody knows this better than the head basketball coach at Maryland, Gary Williams.
No matter whom he beats or whom he has just recruited or even whom they are playing that night, people want to talk about Duke. "Will you beat Duke?" "Can you beat Duke?" "How will you beat Duke?" "You guys ready for Duke?"
There is something good about having a behemoth in your conference. Tennessee football lost a big rival with Steve Spurrier's departure from the SEC. Year after year in the 1990s, Tennessee was measured against Florida, often coming up short. It gave the program something to strive for because, under Spurrier, Florida was usually a top five or six team. Beating the Gators meant something. In fact, the first time Phil Fulmer beat Steve Spurrier, in 1998, Tennessee went on to win its first national title since 1951.
Gary Williams knows about the value of a good rivalry. Duke can make Maryland better. You beat Duke and you can beat anyone in the country. And some carefully managed confidence can go a long way in college basketball.
Williams can handle the tunnel vision of the Maryland faithful (and the media) on his own. But he has to watch his team constantly.
When Duke lost to Florida State, Williams told me, he had to remind his players that they couldn't read too much into it. That loss did not mean that Duke was vulnerable. Williams told them that if we gear up too much for one opponent, we might forget about some other ones. Maryland's 92-87 win over Georgia Tech on Sunday was a close call that nearly fell into that "looking ahead and lost" category.
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Gary Williams knows about the value of a good rivalry. Duke can make Maryland better. You beat Duke and you can beat anyone in the country. |
Lonny Baxter, Juan Dixon and teammates ought to listen to every word their coach says about Duke. Then again, it looks like they do. Williams and Maryland have won two straight at Cameron Indoor Stadium -- where, by the way, Duke is 61-4 since the 1997-98 season.
There aren't a lot of teams that make Mike Krzyzewski put in extra time at the office. But you get the feeling that he'll put in that one more hour per day this week. The teams played four times last year and Duke won three. But Maryland led at halftime in all four games.
So Maryland is not afraid of visiting Durham -- but the Terps don't take it for granted. This is a big game if only because of Duke's loss to Florida State. Right now, Maryland leads the ACC at 3-0. A Maryland win gives the Terps a two-game cushion and some help with tiebreakers. Winning the ACC league title is not the ultimate goal, but it's one of the things any Maryland coach can point to with pride.
Because it means you beat Duke.
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Dick Vitale previews Thursday's Maryland-Duke showdown.