One of the lingering irritations of living in the Washington D.C. area is the poor quality of sports writing at the major dailies. Over the last several years, other than Michael Wilbon, there have been exactly no sports journalists or columnists that I have taken any particular interest in or note of.
Happily, this is changing.
While at Comcast on Tuesday night watching Maryland dispatch Lafayette, I was struck once again by how well Pe'Shon Howard plays the point. He committed a terrible turnover late in the game, looked very uncomfortable attempting open jumpshots, and occasionally failed to flash out fully at a Leopard looking to pop a three. But when he was on the floor, he ran the Terps offense with poise and dropped some sizzling dimes.
I figured that I would come home and tap out another homage to Howard, one of the most underrated players on the squad. But, as it turns out, this ground has already been covered much more competently by the Washington Post's excellent Alex Prewitt in a short post on Terrapins Insider on Sunday. Prewitt really is terrific and does an incredible job providing context for what we're seeing on the court or on the field. He seems to have little interest in mindlessly promoting Maryland's athletic program, nor does he appear to have any particular agenda in attacking coaches or administrators. Instead, Prewitt provides insightful analysis and background. He's a must-read for every Terrapin supporter.
But as grateful as I am for Mr. Prewitt's contributions, I am even more grateful for the work of the Washington Examiner's Craig Stouffer.
This has been a bittersweet season following D.C. United. The dominant storyline is the team's return to competitiveness and falling just short of the MLS Cup game. Despite limited interest for the bulk of the year, fans turned out for the playoff matches and the last regular season game (against Columbus).
We bucked that trend -- after going to home fixtures throughout the year, we gave away our tickets for the last three matches. Although we fell in love with many of the players on this season's squad -- particularly Nick DeLeon -- by the end of the season, I was disenchanted and found myself rooting against Ben Olsen's favored sons.
My negativity has been further fueled by the lack of any meaningful analysis of the Olsen regime, as we are instead treated to inane hagiography. I am, at this point, almost constitutionally incapable of giving credit to Coach Olsen for any one of the many undeniable things he has done to improve the side and develop certain individuals.
Craig Stouffer's summation of the season, published Monday, provided a balanced review that has been utterly lacking in the work of others covering the team. As Stouffer observes, "Olsen’s coaching job will be universally lauded, but that doesn’t mean it was perfect." Stouffer specifically questions Olsen's utilization of Branko Boskovic and Hamdi Salihi, something that has driven us nuts as we watched some really horrible performances in the midfield and at forward by players possessing nothing remotely close to the talent that Boskovic and Salihi offer.
Since United has bowed out of the playoffs, DC has parted company with Boskovic, a player who, along with DeRosario, offered the most innovation in attack we've seen in five years. United has also locked up Dejan Jakovic with a new contract after Jakovic managed to play twenty games for the first time since 2009. All signs point to Ethan White, again, being persona non grata in 2013.
But I take solace in the prospect of somebody actually holding management responsible. Absent constructive critiques coming from those covering the team, there is little prospect that man management or personnel decisions will improve. Stouffer can fill that vital role.
Showing posts with label Maryland Men's Basketball. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Maryland Men's Basketball. Show all posts
Friday, November 23, 2012
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Traitor
For a decade now, our love of men's college basketball has been requited at the Verizon Center. Georgetown's been the fulcrum, John Thompson III the muse, and two years of NCAA tournament games the unexpected bonus.
Nevertheless, our tickets for Wednesday night's tune up against Liberty went unused. I'd wanted to see how much Mikael Hopkins and Greg Whittington had developed over the summer. It would also have been our first opportunity to watch D'Vauntes Smith-Rivera in person.
But as nice as getting to know the 2012-13 Hoyas would have been, for the first time, I wanted to be at Comcast more. I was there for the Terps' home opener against Morehead State Monday night and loved every minute. For the most part, gone were the frustrating defensive lapses, gone was the sniping, and gone was the one on four offense after play designs broke down. Instead, on the floor was a cohesive unit of charismatic players. Nothing about the win was particularly impressive, but a new day has dawned. Scoring, for example, was balanced: Nick Faust had 12, Alex Len 11, James Padgett 9, Shaquille Cleare and Dez Wells 8, Jake Layman 7, and Seth Allen 6. And others contributed by adopting specific roles: Charles Mitchell pulled down 9 rebounds, Pe'shon Howard didn't take a shot but posted 7 assists.
With only 8,724 inside the stadium, the vibe was relaxed -- low pressure -- and incredibly family friendly. Tonight's game against LIU-Brooklyn was a 7 pm tipoff and it seemed as good a time as any to bring the kids out to the new look Maryland under Coach Turgeon. The cost was foregoing Georgetown's game Wednesday, but the reward made the tradeoff well worthwhile.
Students clearly heeded Coach Turgeon's request for more active support. At 12,785, Comcast was rocking. Often, the intensity on the court matched the intensity in the stands. Dez Wells had a ridiculous stretch of three consecutive blocks. Seth Allen went five for six from beyond the arc. Pe'shon Howard had thirteen assists and one turnover. And my kids, a four-year old and one-year old, stayed with the game until the last minute.
We've been to some great games at Comcast, games that had my eldest bouncing out of the stadium. But all of those were women's games. We've been to some great men's basketball games, games that had my eldest bouncing out of the stadium. But all of those were Georgetown games. Tonight was the first time that our kids walked out of Comcast grinning after a men's game.
Nevertheless, our tickets for Wednesday night's tune up against Liberty went unused. I'd wanted to see how much Mikael Hopkins and Greg Whittington had developed over the summer. It would also have been our first opportunity to watch D'Vauntes Smith-Rivera in person.
But as nice as getting to know the 2012-13 Hoyas would have been, for the first time, I wanted to be at Comcast more. I was there for the Terps' home opener against Morehead State Monday night and loved every minute. For the most part, gone were the frustrating defensive lapses, gone was the sniping, and gone was the one on four offense after play designs broke down. Instead, on the floor was a cohesive unit of charismatic players. Nothing about the win was particularly impressive, but a new day has dawned. Scoring, for example, was balanced: Nick Faust had 12, Alex Len 11, James Padgett 9, Shaquille Cleare and Dez Wells 8, Jake Layman 7, and Seth Allen 6. And others contributed by adopting specific roles: Charles Mitchell pulled down 9 rebounds, Pe'shon Howard didn't take a shot but posted 7 assists.
With only 8,724 inside the stadium, the vibe was relaxed -- low pressure -- and incredibly family friendly. Tonight's game against LIU-Brooklyn was a 7 pm tipoff and it seemed as good a time as any to bring the kids out to the new look Maryland under Coach Turgeon. The cost was foregoing Georgetown's game Wednesday, but the reward made the tradeoff well worthwhile.
Students clearly heeded Coach Turgeon's request for more active support. At 12,785, Comcast was rocking. Often, the intensity on the court matched the intensity in the stands. Dez Wells had a ridiculous stretch of three consecutive blocks. Seth Allen went five for six from beyond the arc. Pe'shon Howard had thirteen assists and one turnover. And my kids, a four-year old and one-year old, stayed with the game until the last minute.
We've been to some great games at Comcast, games that had my eldest bouncing out of the stadium. But all of those were women's games. We've been to some great men's basketball games, games that had my eldest bouncing out of the stadium. But all of those were Georgetown games. Tonight was the first time that our kids walked out of Comcast grinning after a men's game.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Playing the Game
Some time ago, I tried to buy some additional time at a Georgetown game by walking my eldest around the loggia. We happened past Alonzo Mourning signing copies of his autobiography "Resilience: Faith, Focus, Triumph." I did not follow Mourning's career, but there was no one around so I picked up a copy and put it on the shelf.
I finally read the book last month; it basically confirms everything that I've loved about Georgetown's basketball program. The story of a kid in foster care in the Tidewater growing up to be a member of the board of directors of an elite private university is likely to be interesting regardless of the vehicle for ascendance. But because the last basketball book I read was George Dohrmann's fantastic (albeit horrifically depressing) "Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine," Mourning's tale is affirmation of the value of collegiate athletics.
As the mirror image to Dohrmann's exposure of Tim Floyd to be everything we thought he was, Mourning exalts John Thompson II as everything we hoped he might be. I may live in a town where a head coach was allowed to temporarily dismiss a woeful educational record with vacuous claims about the professional careers of a minority of his players, but the long shadow of JT's program meant that folks up here always understood that -- national championship notwithstanding -- it didn't have to be this way.
So it surprises me that in terms of the concocted conflict between the men's basketball programs of Georgetown and Maryland, I'm fully on board with Kevin Anderson's approach of overt confrontation. Is there likely to be a Georgetown-Maryland basketball game played anytime soon? No, of course not. Egos have been bruised and the Hoyas have been backed into a corner.
There will certainly be collateral damage. The refusal to schedule games across all sports after this season is a blow to the intense rivalry between the men's and women's lacrosse teams (although the lady Hoyas haven't taken a game since 2006, so perhaps they will welcome the respite). It is also a blow to the budding rivalries between the women's soccer programs -- after Georgetown's women's soccer team knocked off the number one team in the country in the second round of the 2010 NCAA tournament -- and women's basketball programs -- after Georgetown's women's basketball team blistered the Terps in the second round of the 2011 NCAA tournament.
But there's a deeper point here. Some teams announce their return to prominence with t-shirts that read "Respect Is Back/ Fear Is Next"; others call out the local powerhouse and demand a reckoning.
Maryland will get blown off. And critics will find another reason to take shots at Kevin Anderson. But in the interim, Maryland's going to be a major impediment to Georgetown's concerted efforts over the last several years to lock up elite local talent. When Queen Anne's County High's Damonte Dodd decided to become a Terp, he turned away from an unparalleled tradition of excellence in developing big men: And why?
The gauntlet has been thrown down -- Maryland wants to test itself against the biggest kid on the block and Georgetown prefers derbies with American University and Howard.
I finally read the book last month; it basically confirms everything that I've loved about Georgetown's basketball program. The story of a kid in foster care in the Tidewater growing up to be a member of the board of directors of an elite private university is likely to be interesting regardless of the vehicle for ascendance. But because the last basketball book I read was George Dohrmann's fantastic (albeit horrifically depressing) "Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine," Mourning's tale is affirmation of the value of collegiate athletics.
As the mirror image to Dohrmann's exposure of Tim Floyd to be everything we thought he was, Mourning exalts John Thompson II as everything we hoped he might be. I may live in a town where a head coach was allowed to temporarily dismiss a woeful educational record with vacuous claims about the professional careers of a minority of his players, but the long shadow of JT's program meant that folks up here always understood that -- national championship notwithstanding -- it didn't have to be this way.
So it surprises me that in terms of the concocted conflict between the men's basketball programs of Georgetown and Maryland, I'm fully on board with Kevin Anderson's approach of overt confrontation. Is there likely to be a Georgetown-Maryland basketball game played anytime soon? No, of course not. Egos have been bruised and the Hoyas have been backed into a corner.
There will certainly be collateral damage. The refusal to schedule games across all sports after this season is a blow to the intense rivalry between the men's and women's lacrosse teams (although the lady Hoyas haven't taken a game since 2006, so perhaps they will welcome the respite). It is also a blow to the budding rivalries between the women's soccer programs -- after Georgetown's women's soccer team knocked off the number one team in the country in the second round of the 2010 NCAA tournament -- and women's basketball programs -- after Georgetown's women's basketball team blistered the Terps in the second round of the 2011 NCAA tournament.
But there's a deeper point here. Some teams announce their return to prominence with t-shirts that read "Respect Is Back/ Fear Is Next"; others call out the local powerhouse and demand a reckoning.
Maryland will get blown off. And critics will find another reason to take shots at Kevin Anderson. But in the interim, Maryland's going to be a major impediment to Georgetown's concerted efforts over the last several years to lock up elite local talent. When Queen Anne's County High's Damonte Dodd decided to become a Terp, he turned away from an unparalleled tradition of excellence in developing big men:
Former Georgetown great and NBA veteran Dikembe Mutombo was in regular contact with Dodd, according to [Queen Anne's head coach Dale] Becraft."Mutombo had his cell number, and called him from time to time," Becraft said. "Damonte, I know, enjoyed that, too."
"I always liked Maryland," said Dodd, who attended the Terps' 75-70 victory over Miami on Tuesday night. "And visiting them, I liked how they stuck together as a team, and how the coaches wanted players to be successful, whether in the NBA or getting a degree."New day.
The gauntlet has been thrown down -- Maryland wants to test itself against the biggest kid on the block and Georgetown prefers derbies with American University and Howard.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Bargain
Maine, with a ratings percentage index ranking just south of Jersey City's mighty St. Peter's, has posted double digits in wins this season, including a twelve-point shellacking of Holy Cross. That away loss for the Crusaders came a little more than a week after Holy Cross beat Boston College by twelve -- sending the Eagles into a tailspin that led to a 36 point decimation at the hands of UMass.
So, it is a little difficult to make the case that Boston College is a good college basketball team. At the same time, by beating Florida State at home, BC had achieved something that Maryland hasn't managed this season: a victory over a ranked opponent.
In the upper deck at Comcast, the Terrapins convincing win kindled faint discussions about the remote possibility of an at-large bid -- a whisper that will grow louder if Maryland can pull off an upset at John Paul Jones a few hours from now.
From my vantage point, the story was Nick Faust insofar as how much the freshman has improved over the course of the season. Yes, Faust was 4 for 12 from the floor and, yes, he committed a career-high five turnovers. But he also posted career highs in steals (5) and assists (6) while confidently attacking the high pressure that the Eagles threw at him defensively.
I had assumed that what would turn me around on Maryland basketball this season would be Pe'shon Howard running the point (going a little something like this). Faust has a similar flair for dropping pretty dimes, has begun to assert himself at the one in Howard's absence, and brings the added benefit of being able to close out games with authority.
Fun game to watch; fun team to watch. And they're getting better.
AND... there are great stories to be told about the squad, like Don Markus's wonderful profile of Jonathan Thomas in the Baltimore Sun. Dean's List. Mechanical Engineering major. Math minor. A class called "Vibration, Controls, and Optimization I." And Thomas is playing varsity basketball -- albeit in limited minutes -- on a court named after Gary Williams. Stunning.
So, it is a little difficult to make the case that Boston College is a good college basketball team. At the same time, by beating Florida State at home, BC had achieved something that Maryland hasn't managed this season: a victory over a ranked opponent.
In the upper deck at Comcast, the Terrapins convincing win kindled faint discussions about the remote possibility of an at-large bid -- a whisper that will grow louder if Maryland can pull off an upset at John Paul Jones a few hours from now.
From my vantage point, the story was Nick Faust insofar as how much the freshman has improved over the course of the season. Yes, Faust was 4 for 12 from the floor and, yes, he committed a career-high five turnovers. But he also posted career highs in steals (5) and assists (6) while confidently attacking the high pressure that the Eagles threw at him defensively.
I had assumed that what would turn me around on Maryland basketball this season would be Pe'shon Howard running the point (going a little something like this). Faust has a similar flair for dropping pretty dimes, has begun to assert himself at the one in Howard's absence, and brings the added benefit of being able to close out games with authority.
Fun game to watch; fun team to watch. And they're getting better.
AND... there are great stories to be told about the squad, like Don Markus's wonderful profile of Jonathan Thomas in the Baltimore Sun. Dean's List. Mechanical Engineering major. Math minor. A class called "Vibration, Controls, and Optimization I." And Thomas is playing varsity basketball -- albeit in limited minutes -- on a court named after Gary Williams. Stunning.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Rebound
The Baltimore Sun's Don Markus recently penned a nice tribute to James Padgett's growth as a college basketball player under Coach Turgeon. With Alex Len, Pe'Shon Howard, Terrell Stoglin, Nick Faust, and Sean Mosley on the roster, Padgett's contributions can easily be taken for granted. I, like Markus, have very much enjoyed watching Padgett crash the boards at Comcast and it is nice to see his effort recognized in a mainstream publication.
But I'm back from Comcast this evening having witnessed a transcendent rebounding performance from Riverdale Baptist's Tianna Hawkins. The junior is averaging over ten rebounds a game this season and tonight Ms. Hawkins eclipsed a thirty-five year old team record by pulling down twenty-four rebounds against Wake Forest. Tianna grabbed her first twenty-three boards without much fanfare. Then the stadium's jumbotron informed fans that she had tied the team record after Maryland had pulled away, the game was largely over, and Tianna was on the bench:
We're about two-thirds of the way through the regular season and this has already been an amazing year for Maryland women's basketball; Tianna's phenomenal performance tonight was just another brick in that wall.
But I'm back from Comcast this evening having witnessed a transcendent rebounding performance from Riverdale Baptist's Tianna Hawkins. The junior is averaging over ten rebounds a game this season and tonight Ms. Hawkins eclipsed a thirty-five year old team record by pulling down twenty-four rebounds against Wake Forest. Tianna grabbed her first twenty-three boards without much fanfare. Then the stadium's jumbotron informed fans that she had tied the team record after Maryland had pulled away, the game was largely over, and Tianna was on the bench:
"I asked the team if we should let her come back in and they unanimously said yes," Frese said. "That record has been in the record books for a very long time. It's special for us to be able to break records."Now, we enjoyed the game and my daughters' had fun throughout, but the last minute and a half -- with Tianna trying to get one more board -- was the most compelling. In that short time, Tianna barely missed an offensive rebound after a missed free throw that slipped out of bounds, then elected to actually honestly finish a layup rather than play the ball off the rim to break the record cheaply, and then broke the record fair and square while her teammates bounded up and down off the bench.
We're about two-thirds of the way through the regular season and this has already been an amazing year for Maryland women's basketball; Tianna's phenomenal performance tonight was just another brick in that wall.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Vacancies
The night before Maryland men's soccer team was slated to meet Louisville in the NCAA tournament, my eldest and I were having dinner at the Macaroni Grill in Silver Spring prior to catching the kid's movie of her choice. Not my favorite restaurant, but my daughter got to make the call and I simply could not cajole her into selecting Nando's.
Fifteen minutes or so after we had sat down and ordered, in walked Louisville's team followed by an impressively large group of boosters and family members. And as the very talented college soccer team enjoyed an evening meal, including three seniors expected to be taken in the first round of next year's MLS draft, I got to talk to my kid about the tournament game the next day in the context of a personal familiarity with the athletic contestants that I had never had as a kid.
That dinner made her enthusiastic about the game early Sunday evening. We sat on the grass hill/embankment and I, once again, counted my blessings. Shortly thereafter, Athletic Director Kevin Anderson strolled up the same hill with his lovely family and I momentarily considered bounding over to him and thanking him for working to create an environment where I could take my kids to games with pride. I demurred, having earlier interrupted a private moment of President Wallace Loh's to introduce ourselves, but have come to regret not stridently expressing support for the regime change that brought Randy Edsall to College Park.
These thoughts kept haunting me as we sat in a cavernously empty Comcast Center on Wednesday night watching Zeke's Florida International Union embarrass Maryland for long stretches of the game. For my daughters, this was their second college hoops contest of the week, having endured the Georgetown-Howard match at Verizon on Saturday. The contrast between the two games was stark. While Georgetown's fans were stunned by how long Howard stayed in the game, they remained supportive throughout and got behind the team at key stretches. Maryland's fans took the opposite tact, bitterly grousing throughout most of the game. At one point, I needed to calm down the infant by walking around and found that I didn't need to actually see the game to follow the action: every time Maryland missed any shot or committed a turnover, the crowd collectively groaned in exasperation; every time FIU scored, the crowd behaved as if it had been wounded.
There is no reason this should happen. Mark Turgeon's doing an admirable job with what he has and, in the absence of Pe'Shon Howard and Alex Len (who both return over the next two games), Maryland is 6 and 3 with wins over a Big East team (Notre Dame) and a Pac-12 team (Colorado). Unless they trip up -- as they've come close to doing the last two games -- they're likely to go into the conference season with ten wins. And while the talent has been derided, there are some good players still on this roster; I really enjoyed Ashton Pankey's performance against FIU.
And, yet, Kevin Anderson continues to bear the brunt of criticism leveled at University of Maryland athletics. All kinds of voices (including alums who own small businesses, go to a few games, and, as such, are entitled to lecture the school about the constitution of the football program) have been popping off about what needs to be done to fix Maryland football and basketball and the grievous ways in which the "legacies" of Ralph Friedgen and Gary Williams were tarnished. But we're through the football season and now comfortably into the basketball season. The one thing that's been pretty consistent is piss-poor fan support.
According to the largely useless Report of the President's Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics (Nov. 11, 2011), overall fundraising revenue (composed of Terrapin Club contributions, major gifts, and endowment revenue) fell from $15.3 million in fiscal year 2008 to $11.1 million in fiscal year 2009 -- a 28% decline in a single year while, by the way, both Friedgen and Williams were coaching their respective programs. Fundraising revenues fell again in FY2010, to $10.1 million (again, while Friedgen and Williams were still coaching) and to $9.1 million in FY2011. The $6.2 million dollar decline in fundraising revenue from FY2008 to FY2011 constituted nearly 6 times the $1.2 million dollar operating loss Maryland Athletics experienced in FY2011 and more than the projected loss for any future year through FY2017. The amounts aren't split out, so it is unclear how big of an impact declines in endowment revenue had on the overall budget, but the USA Today's "College Athletics Finance Database" pegged endowment and investment income as contributing less than $500k to total revenue in FY2010.
Contributions (fundraising) are just as big of a component of the overall athletics budget as football revenue or basketball revenue at Maryland. Kristi Dosh analyzed figures reported to the U.S. Department of Education for FY2010 and observed that Maryland clears the second least amount of football revenues in the ACC -- $11.5 million (compared to $10.1 million in revenue from contributions the same year), just ahead of Wake Forest. Duke, the school immediately above Maryland in terms of football revenue in the ACC, generated $16.1 million in revenue from their terrible football program, 40% more than what Maryland earned. Debbie Yow's new school earned almost twice what Maryland earned in football and Virginia Tech earned almost three times the Terps' take. On the flip side, Maryland spent the least on its football program.
For basketball, Ms. Dosh reported revenue for the Terps of $10.7 million in FY2010, putting it in the upper end of the ACC compared to $26.7 million at Duke, $20.6 million at UNC, $10.4 million at NC State, $9.8 million at Virginia, $9.3 million at Virginia Tech, $9.1 million at Wake Forest and Georgia Tech, $8.0 million at Boston College, $7.1 million at Clemson and Miami, and $5.8 million for Florida State.
While basketball revenue seems significantly higher for Maryland basketball, Ms. Dosh's reporting would seem to confirm that Maryland's financial contributions have been relatively meager compared to the athletics program at the University of Virginia which received $26.0 million in contributions for FY2010, while Florida State received contributions amounting to $23.2 million and Virginia Tech's received $16.1 million in contributions as reported in this article from Ms. Dosh.
So, likely because football revenue and contributions revenue put Maryland at the lower end of the ACC totem pole in FY2010, the school relied heavily on student fees -- purportedly the fourth most in the country -- generating $13.7 million from enrolled students. Thus, current (cash-strapped) students contributed more to the FY10 budget than alumni, which seems completely crazy.
Other than noting that luxury boxes at Byrd have been a financial drain rather than boon, the President's Commission Report doesn't spend nearly any time discussing the revenue woes that seem to afflict the program. And while the Report frequently discusses expenditures in context of other conference schools, it makes no such comparative effort with respect to revenue.
But maybe that just acknowledges the slim prospects of embarrassing this fanbase into action. For a game broadcast on ESPN, attendance -- both of the student and non-student supporter variety -- was horrific Wednesday night. Given what the financials indicate about compulsory support from the students, I'm not bothered that they don't show up. But for alums and general sports fans in the region, tickets could be had in the secondary market for less than $5, cash parking at a garage in easy distance from Comcast was $10. Still, the upper bowl was virtually empty. Our row in the lower bowl was completely empty. No one could be bothered.
The other side of the coin here is that A.D. Anderson has a unique opportunity to take a hard look at the culture of University of Maryland sports. He now has a chance, looking out across empty seats in both Byrd and Comcast, to think about how much of a role "F U!" chants and unvarnished front-running play in retarding support for the school's terrific athletic programs.
In the meantime, empty seats at Comcast mean more room to spread out the winter coats, baby toys, and diaper bag and put me at a greater distance from the caterwauling that seems to characterize most of contemporary Terp nation.
Fifteen minutes or so after we had sat down and ordered, in walked Louisville's team followed by an impressively large group of boosters and family members. And as the very talented college soccer team enjoyed an evening meal, including three seniors expected to be taken in the first round of next year's MLS draft, I got to talk to my kid about the tournament game the next day in the context of a personal familiarity with the athletic contestants that I had never had as a kid.
That dinner made her enthusiastic about the game early Sunday evening. We sat on the grass hill/embankment and I, once again, counted my blessings. Shortly thereafter, Athletic Director Kevin Anderson strolled up the same hill with his lovely family and I momentarily considered bounding over to him and thanking him for working to create an environment where I could take my kids to games with pride. I demurred, having earlier interrupted a private moment of President Wallace Loh's to introduce ourselves, but have come to regret not stridently expressing support for the regime change that brought Randy Edsall to College Park.
These thoughts kept haunting me as we sat in a cavernously empty Comcast Center on Wednesday night watching Zeke's Florida International Union embarrass Maryland for long stretches of the game. For my daughters, this was their second college hoops contest of the week, having endured the Georgetown-Howard match at Verizon on Saturday. The contrast between the two games was stark. While Georgetown's fans were stunned by how long Howard stayed in the game, they remained supportive throughout and got behind the team at key stretches. Maryland's fans took the opposite tact, bitterly grousing throughout most of the game. At one point, I needed to calm down the infant by walking around and found that I didn't need to actually see the game to follow the action: every time Maryland missed any shot or committed a turnover, the crowd collectively groaned in exasperation; every time FIU scored, the crowd behaved as if it had been wounded.
There is no reason this should happen. Mark Turgeon's doing an admirable job with what he has and, in the absence of Pe'Shon Howard and Alex Len (who both return over the next two games), Maryland is 6 and 3 with wins over a Big East team (Notre Dame) and a Pac-12 team (Colorado). Unless they trip up -- as they've come close to doing the last two games -- they're likely to go into the conference season with ten wins. And while the talent has been derided, there are some good players still on this roster; I really enjoyed Ashton Pankey's performance against FIU.
And, yet, Kevin Anderson continues to bear the brunt of criticism leveled at University of Maryland athletics. All kinds of voices (including alums who own small businesses, go to a few games, and, as such, are entitled to lecture the school about the constitution of the football program) have been popping off about what needs to be done to fix Maryland football and basketball and the grievous ways in which the "legacies" of Ralph Friedgen and Gary Williams were tarnished. But we're through the football season and now comfortably into the basketball season. The one thing that's been pretty consistent is piss-poor fan support.
According to the largely useless Report of the President's Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics (Nov. 11, 2011), overall fundraising revenue (composed of Terrapin Club contributions, major gifts, and endowment revenue) fell from $15.3 million in fiscal year 2008 to $11.1 million in fiscal year 2009 -- a 28% decline in a single year while, by the way, both Friedgen and Williams were coaching their respective programs. Fundraising revenues fell again in FY2010, to $10.1 million (again, while Friedgen and Williams were still coaching) and to $9.1 million in FY2011. The $6.2 million dollar decline in fundraising revenue from FY2008 to FY2011 constituted nearly 6 times the $1.2 million dollar operating loss Maryland Athletics experienced in FY2011 and more than the projected loss for any future year through FY2017. The amounts aren't split out, so it is unclear how big of an impact declines in endowment revenue had on the overall budget, but the USA Today's "College Athletics Finance Database" pegged endowment and investment income as contributing less than $500k to total revenue in FY2010.
Contributions (fundraising) are just as big of a component of the overall athletics budget as football revenue or basketball revenue at Maryland. Kristi Dosh analyzed figures reported to the U.S. Department of Education for FY2010 and observed that Maryland clears the second least amount of football revenues in the ACC -- $11.5 million (compared to $10.1 million in revenue from contributions the same year), just ahead of Wake Forest. Duke, the school immediately above Maryland in terms of football revenue in the ACC, generated $16.1 million in revenue from their terrible football program, 40% more than what Maryland earned. Debbie Yow's new school earned almost twice what Maryland earned in football and Virginia Tech earned almost three times the Terps' take. On the flip side, Maryland spent the least on its football program.
For basketball, Ms. Dosh reported revenue for the Terps of $10.7 million in FY2010, putting it in the upper end of the ACC compared to $26.7 million at Duke, $20.6 million at UNC, $10.4 million at NC State, $9.8 million at Virginia, $9.3 million at Virginia Tech, $9.1 million at Wake Forest and Georgia Tech, $8.0 million at Boston College, $7.1 million at Clemson and Miami, and $5.8 million for Florida State.
While basketball revenue seems significantly higher for Maryland basketball, Ms. Dosh's reporting would seem to confirm that Maryland's financial contributions have been relatively meager compared to the athletics program at the University of Virginia which received $26.0 million in contributions for FY2010, while Florida State received contributions amounting to $23.2 million and Virginia Tech's received $16.1 million in contributions as reported in this article from Ms. Dosh.
So, likely because football revenue and contributions revenue put Maryland at the lower end of the ACC totem pole in FY2010, the school relied heavily on student fees -- purportedly the fourth most in the country -- generating $13.7 million from enrolled students. Thus, current (cash-strapped) students contributed more to the FY10 budget than alumni, which seems completely crazy.
Other than noting that luxury boxes at Byrd have been a financial drain rather than boon, the President's Commission Report doesn't spend nearly any time discussing the revenue woes that seem to afflict the program. And while the Report frequently discusses expenditures in context of other conference schools, it makes no such comparative effort with respect to revenue.
But maybe that just acknowledges the slim prospects of embarrassing this fanbase into action. For a game broadcast on ESPN, attendance -- both of the student and non-student supporter variety -- was horrific Wednesday night. Given what the financials indicate about compulsory support from the students, I'm not bothered that they don't show up. But for alums and general sports fans in the region, tickets could be had in the secondary market for less than $5, cash parking at a garage in easy distance from Comcast was $10. Still, the upper bowl was virtually empty. Our row in the lower bowl was completely empty. No one could be bothered.
The other side of the coin here is that A.D. Anderson has a unique opportunity to take a hard look at the culture of University of Maryland sports. He now has a chance, looking out across empty seats in both Byrd and Comcast, to think about how much of a role "F U!" chants and unvarnished front-running play in retarding support for the school's terrific athletic programs.
In the meantime, empty seats at Comcast mean more room to spread out the winter coats, baby toys, and diaper bag and put me at a greater distance from the caterwauling that seems to characterize most of contemporary Terp nation.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Thanksgiving
I read Tracee Hamilton's most recent column as my three-year old napped prior to tip-off of the Maryland-Florida Gulf Coast game. We were taking our daughters to their first Maryland men's basketball game after a pleasant Tuesday evening visit to campus for my five-month old's first Maryland women's basketball game.
The view of Comcast that my girls had at both games was roughly the same, as the stadium was largely devoid of fans for Mark Turgeon's second home game of the year. The thousands of empty seats led the Baltimore Sun's Don Markus to observe:
Hamilton's frivolous lament stuck with me during the game because it seemed to so perfectly reflect the ethos of what it means to be a Washington-area sports fan. It also encapsulates why midwesterners (among others) have such difficulty sympathizing with the fickle nature of the DC-area sports fan.
Washingtonians behave as if this is an anointed city of Champions. And not just run-of-the-mill "we're ridiculously, phenomenally blessed in these particular areas of sport" but Champions in things that will earn the attention of important people around the globe. What matters is the Redskins competing for the Super Bowl, the Wizards marching towards the Eastern Conference finals, the Nationals stirring towards a wild-card spot, the Capitals hoisting the Stanley Cup, and the Terps in play for a BCS bowl or yet another Final Four men's basketball tournament appearance.
The complaints about the dire status of Redskins and Terps football, Wizards and Terps men's basketball, and Washington sports generally comes at a time when my enjoyment of local sports -- particularly those at the University of Maryland -- is at an all-time high. And the incongruences between the way sports are covered in this region and what actually takes place become all the more remarkable.
The best example I can give is from two weekends ago beginning with Veterans Day.
The weekend began with a trip to Ludwig to watch the Maryland women open up their NCAA tournament games against a La Salle team that had given up seven goals all season. Led by a fantastic performance by sophomore transfer Hayley Brock, the Terps put five in the back of the net against the Explorers in one game. There were probably more La Salle students in the stands for the game than Maryland students, but those Maryland supporters that showed up were treated to a terrific showing by an extremely talented Terp team that had sputtered a bit through ACC play.
After the game, we walked down to Comcast to watch the women's basketball team open the regular season by blowing out Loyola. And, as usual, the student showing was even more sparse than at the soccer game. Even with few eyes on them, Coach Frese's team served notice that this year's squad is much stronger than last year's version.
Saturday night, we traveled over to FedEx Field to catch Maryland get whacked by Notre Dame. There were probably better ways to spend the evening and there's little doubt that the Terps are not a good football team, but, for us, we're not going to do a lot of traveling with the team and sitting down on the field engulfed by Notre Dame supporters afforded us a level of intense fan support that is unmatched at Byrd on gameday. Plus, despite being pounded on the scoreboard and pummeled in the stands, we got to watch solid linebacker play out of Demetrius Hartsfield and freshman Alex Twine.
And Sunday, I went to Comcast twice -- first for the Maryland women's prolific beat down of a very, very good Georgetown team (a team that embarrassed Georgia's women tonight in Las Vegas) and later for Coach Turgeon's inaugural win as head coach of the Maryland men against UNC Wilmington. For both games, the Center was largely empty. And the massive line from community supporters waiting to meet the Maryland women's players and coaching staff after the Georgetown upset was piteously juxtaposed with the short wait I endured to get into the men's game as students got their tickets scanned, then turned around and walked out of the stadium (something I've never previously seen first hand).
In between all of that, I also attended my first ever field hockey games, watching Maryland beat Iowa in their first round NCAA tournament game and then sitting through most of a thrilling, tense affair that concluded with the Terps upending Syracuse to advance to the Final Four.
Of all the Maryland events I went to that weekend, the Syracuse field hockey game was the single-best sporting event; although I had little idea of what was going on in terms of rules or playing strategy, the contest was so engrossing I forewent a large part of the Maryland-Georgetown game. And the timing could not have been better... the next weekend, for entirely bizarre and providential reasons, we toured the Field Hockey Hall of Fame housed in Collegeville, Pennsylvania on Saturday and then my three-year old and I watched, through a live feed, Maryland's stunning comeback win over the Tar Heels in the National Championship game on Sunday.
I may not have any ability to appreciate the subtlety of the sport, but even my three-year old could appreciate the drama of a two-goal comeback with four minutes in regulation and the exhilaration of Jill Witmer's determined run in overtime to give the Terps yet another National Championship.
But an NCAA field hockey championship is not a real championship and Kevin Anderson still deserves to be fired and Debbie Yow remains the worst person in the world. And *yawn* we've got another top ten women's basketball team in College Park. And *shrug* Maryland's men's soccer team absolutely obliterated West Virginia -- with a hat-trick from future professional Casey Townsend -- in their opening game of the NCAA tournament, roughly a week and a half after Maryland alum Omar Gonzalez was named MLS defender of the year and shortly before he and fellow Maryland alum A.J. DeLaGarza would start together and secure a clean sheet MLS Cup win.
Of course, all of the above relates only to Maryland.
After skipping the Georgetown men's home opener to watch field hockey, I went to Verizon that Monday to see the win over UNC Greensboro and was floored by how good Georgetown's young team was. I sat down behind Roy Hibbert, equally impressed by how accommodating Hibbert was with fans in the crowd and how impressive Georgetown's freshman class looks on the court. For those who were paying attention, the Hoyas remarkable run at the Maui Invitational wasn't wholly unexpected -- indeed, on the strength of the Greensboro game I stayed up to watch the Kansas opener live because I thought that Georgetown had a decent opportunity to pull the upset win. Although this year was written off as a down year for the program, the chances now are better than fair that the Hoyas will once again be among the nation's elite.
And none of the foregoing even begins to account for the insane level at which prep sports are played in this region: DeMatha's soccer team went undefeated and was generally considered the number one or two high school team in the entire country. The last ESPN ranking I looked at had Good Counsel's football team placed at sixth nationally.
Yet, even with these overflowing blessings, the accepted storyline is the paucity of compelling sports storylines this fall.
I don't get it.
On almost any weekend day over the last couple of months, anyone could easily have taken themselves over to watch world-class athletes compete in high-level sporting contests. Those of us in this region are privileged to have before us a bountiful cornucopia of excellence across fall sports -- football, basketball, soccer, and field hockey -- and yet the complaints about what we don't have register the loudest.
There are many, many more important things that I am thankful for. Nevertheless, the simple fact is, as a massive fan of sports, I am thankful for what D.C. offers. And, in my own selfish way, I'm thankful for all the empty seats around us that facilitate going to these matches with an infant and toddler in tow.
The view of Comcast that my girls had at both games was roughly the same, as the stadium was largely devoid of fans for Mark Turgeon's second home game of the year. The thousands of empty seats led the Baltimore Sun's Don Markus to observe:
One more thing. I have never seen the Comcast Center as empty as it is tonight. I know it's Thanksgiving break, but the marketing department should have done a better job getting tickets out to youth groups, etc. to try to fill the student section behind the basket.Of course, if Markus ever wants to see Comcast more empty, he need only show up to a women's basketball game.
Hamilton's frivolous lament stuck with me during the game because it seemed to so perfectly reflect the ethos of what it means to be a Washington-area sports fan. It also encapsulates why midwesterners (among others) have such difficulty sympathizing with the fickle nature of the DC-area sports fan.
Washingtonians behave as if this is an anointed city of Champions. And not just run-of-the-mill "we're ridiculously, phenomenally blessed in these particular areas of sport" but Champions in things that will earn the attention of important people around the globe. What matters is the Redskins competing for the Super Bowl, the Wizards marching towards the Eastern Conference finals, the Nationals stirring towards a wild-card spot, the Capitals hoisting the Stanley Cup, and the Terps in play for a BCS bowl or yet another Final Four men's basketball tournament appearance.
The complaints about the dire status of Redskins and Terps football, Wizards and Terps men's basketball, and Washington sports generally comes at a time when my enjoyment of local sports -- particularly those at the University of Maryland -- is at an all-time high. And the incongruences between the way sports are covered in this region and what actually takes place become all the more remarkable.
The best example I can give is from two weekends ago beginning with Veterans Day.
The weekend began with a trip to Ludwig to watch the Maryland women open up their NCAA tournament games against a La Salle team that had given up seven goals all season. Led by a fantastic performance by sophomore transfer Hayley Brock, the Terps put five in the back of the net against the Explorers in one game. There were probably more La Salle students in the stands for the game than Maryland students, but those Maryland supporters that showed up were treated to a terrific showing by an extremely talented Terp team that had sputtered a bit through ACC play.
After the game, we walked down to Comcast to watch the women's basketball team open the regular season by blowing out Loyola. And, as usual, the student showing was even more sparse than at the soccer game. Even with few eyes on them, Coach Frese's team served notice that this year's squad is much stronger than last year's version.
Saturday night, we traveled over to FedEx Field to catch Maryland get whacked by Notre Dame. There were probably better ways to spend the evening and there's little doubt that the Terps are not a good football team, but, for us, we're not going to do a lot of traveling with the team and sitting down on the field engulfed by Notre Dame supporters afforded us a level of intense fan support that is unmatched at Byrd on gameday. Plus, despite being pounded on the scoreboard and pummeled in the stands, we got to watch solid linebacker play out of Demetrius Hartsfield and freshman Alex Twine.
And Sunday, I went to Comcast twice -- first for the Maryland women's prolific beat down of a very, very good Georgetown team (a team that embarrassed Georgia's women tonight in Las Vegas) and later for Coach Turgeon's inaugural win as head coach of the Maryland men against UNC Wilmington. For both games, the Center was largely empty. And the massive line from community supporters waiting to meet the Maryland women's players and coaching staff after the Georgetown upset was piteously juxtaposed with the short wait I endured to get into the men's game as students got their tickets scanned, then turned around and walked out of the stadium (something I've never previously seen first hand).
In between all of that, I also attended my first ever field hockey games, watching Maryland beat Iowa in their first round NCAA tournament game and then sitting through most of a thrilling, tense affair that concluded with the Terps upending Syracuse to advance to the Final Four.
Of all the Maryland events I went to that weekend, the Syracuse field hockey game was the single-best sporting event; although I had little idea of what was going on in terms of rules or playing strategy, the contest was so engrossing I forewent a large part of the Maryland-Georgetown game. And the timing could not have been better... the next weekend, for entirely bizarre and providential reasons, we toured the Field Hockey Hall of Fame housed in Collegeville, Pennsylvania on Saturday and then my three-year old and I watched, through a live feed, Maryland's stunning comeback win over the Tar Heels in the National Championship game on Sunday.
I may not have any ability to appreciate the subtlety of the sport, but even my three-year old could appreciate the drama of a two-goal comeback with four minutes in regulation and the exhilaration of Jill Witmer's determined run in overtime to give the Terps yet another National Championship.
But an NCAA field hockey championship is not a real championship and Kevin Anderson still deserves to be fired and Debbie Yow remains the worst person in the world. And *yawn* we've got another top ten women's basketball team in College Park. And *shrug* Maryland's men's soccer team absolutely obliterated West Virginia -- with a hat-trick from future professional Casey Townsend -- in their opening game of the NCAA tournament, roughly a week and a half after Maryland alum Omar Gonzalez was named MLS defender of the year and shortly before he and fellow Maryland alum A.J. DeLaGarza would start together and secure a clean sheet MLS Cup win.
Of course, all of the above relates only to Maryland.
After skipping the Georgetown men's home opener to watch field hockey, I went to Verizon that Monday to see the win over UNC Greensboro and was floored by how good Georgetown's young team was. I sat down behind Roy Hibbert, equally impressed by how accommodating Hibbert was with fans in the crowd and how impressive Georgetown's freshman class looks on the court. For those who were paying attention, the Hoyas remarkable run at the Maui Invitational wasn't wholly unexpected -- indeed, on the strength of the Greensboro game I stayed up to watch the Kansas opener live because I thought that Georgetown had a decent opportunity to pull the upset win. Although this year was written off as a down year for the program, the chances now are better than fair that the Hoyas will once again be among the nation's elite.
And none of the foregoing even begins to account for the insane level at which prep sports are played in this region: DeMatha's soccer team went undefeated and was generally considered the number one or two high school team in the entire country. The last ESPN ranking I looked at had Good Counsel's football team placed at sixth nationally.
Yet, even with these overflowing blessings, the accepted storyline is the paucity of compelling sports storylines this fall.
I don't get it.
On almost any weekend day over the last couple of months, anyone could easily have taken themselves over to watch world-class athletes compete in high-level sporting contests. Those of us in this region are privileged to have before us a bountiful cornucopia of excellence across fall sports -- football, basketball, soccer, and field hockey -- and yet the complaints about what we don't have register the loudest.
There are many, many more important things that I am thankful for. Nevertheless, the simple fact is, as a massive fan of sports, I am thankful for what D.C. offers. And, in my own selfish way, I'm thankful for all the empty seats around us that facilitate going to these matches with an infant and toddler in tow.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Horrid
This year I've gone to all of Georgetown's home games, watched the Illini fall to the Terps at Comcast, and attended two other area college basketball games that I had no rooting interest in: American University visiting the University of Maryland on December 22nd and the Rick Majerus-led St. Louis Billikens traveling to Foggy Bottom last night. Both of the latter games marked historic feats. American's win over the Terps was the school's first victory over Maryland since 1926 - 1927. And it was not a fluke win for American -- Terps fans had so little faith in their squad that people began filing out of Comcast with 3:30 left and Maryland ten points down.
I assumed that the American-Maryland game was going to be the most bizarre college hoops match I witnessed this year. American after all had been drilled by the University of Maryland at Baltimore County (and started this month off by losing to Brown . . . although I did not think that they kept score at Brown sporting events) before handily beating the University of Maryland at College Park. Now, however, I think I need to make a little more time to take in the college game at area schools.
A colleague invited me to watch a George Washington game largely to try and understand what Rick Majerus was thinking when he came out of retirement to take the reins of the Billikens. Neither George Washington nor St. Louis seemed to be very good -- GW had already, like American, been fallen by the mighty UMBC Retrievers (the current home of Crystal Palace FC USA, leading me to become a Charlton supporter and Crystal Palace season ticket holder), while St. Louis had managed to beat a weakened Southern Illinois but got doubled up by Kent State.
Nevertheless, watching a team score seven points in a twenty minute half is, well, a thoroughly confusing experience. It would be nearly impossible to replicate how bad the basketball played in the first half of that game was. The refereeing of the game was horrid: players were routinely hammered after often openly traveling on their way to the basket, but the refs ate their whistles. The Billikens scored their first point, on a free throw, after 5 minutes and 45 seconds had elapsed. St. Louis closed out the first half by not scoring for 8 minutes and 30 seconds. There were two three minute stretches in that half where neither team scored: GW's Wilmore hit a three with 17:36 left and no one scored until St. Louis scored its first point with 14:16 on the clock; GW's Green hit a three with 7:55 to go in the half and the scoreboard didn't move again until Diggs scored with 4:03 in the half. The game was so bad that even though St. Louis had only scored seven points in the first half, they still had a reasonable chance to win. That is, of course, until the Billikens followed up their futility in the first half with an almost nine minute stretch where they failed to score anything in the second half.
Unfortunately, not many GW students saw the spectacle. The Smith Center was fairly empty for the historic occasion -- the lowest point total scored by a D1 team since the imposition of the shot clock. Steven Goff, my favorite DC sports reporter, was, however, amongst the few people with me at the game and his article for the Washington Post (registration required) accurately captures the atmosphere. Nevertheless, what goes unmentioned in Goff's piece is that the surreal night got even more absurd when one of the scores of St. Louis fans in the stands stood up around the 15 minute mark of the second half to berate the kids on the court, pleading that they "wake up" and begging that the Billikens "do something." His screaming seemed to unnerve some of the St. Louis players and was certainly unexpected, given how horrible the game had been going for a solid twenty-five minutes at that point. The preppie GW alums around us tried to shout down the fan, but eventually (correctly) decided that it was best to let him vent in peace.
Outside of the entertainment value of the two hours (which was virtually nil, despite the rarity of the event), I left the Smith Center with an even greater appreciation for what JTIII has done with Georgetown and look forward to a much more entertaining Hoyas-Huskies matchup this afternoon.
I assumed that the American-Maryland game was going to be the most bizarre college hoops match I witnessed this year. American after all had been drilled by the University of Maryland at Baltimore County (and started this month off by losing to Brown . . . although I did not think that they kept score at Brown sporting events) before handily beating the University of Maryland at College Park. Now, however, I think I need to make a little more time to take in the college game at area schools.
A colleague invited me to watch a George Washington game largely to try and understand what Rick Majerus was thinking when he came out of retirement to take the reins of the Billikens. Neither George Washington nor St. Louis seemed to be very good -- GW had already, like American, been fallen by the mighty UMBC Retrievers (the current home of Crystal Palace FC USA, leading me to become a Charlton supporter and Crystal Palace season ticket holder), while St. Louis had managed to beat a weakened Southern Illinois but got doubled up by Kent State.
Nevertheless, watching a team score seven points in a twenty minute half is, well, a thoroughly confusing experience. It would be nearly impossible to replicate how bad the basketball played in the first half of that game was. The refereeing of the game was horrid: players were routinely hammered after often openly traveling on their way to the basket, but the refs ate their whistles. The Billikens scored their first point, on a free throw, after 5 minutes and 45 seconds had elapsed. St. Louis closed out the first half by not scoring for 8 minutes and 30 seconds. There were two three minute stretches in that half where neither team scored: GW's Wilmore hit a three with 17:36 left and no one scored until St. Louis scored its first point with 14:16 on the clock; GW's Green hit a three with 7:55 to go in the half and the scoreboard didn't move again until Diggs scored with 4:03 in the half. The game was so bad that even though St. Louis had only scored seven points in the first half, they still had a reasonable chance to win. That is, of course, until the Billikens followed up their futility in the first half with an almost nine minute stretch where they failed to score anything in the second half.
Unfortunately, not many GW students saw the spectacle. The Smith Center was fairly empty for the historic occasion -- the lowest point total scored by a D1 team since the imposition of the shot clock. Steven Goff, my favorite DC sports reporter, was, however, amongst the few people with me at the game and his article for the Washington Post (registration required) accurately captures the atmosphere. Nevertheless, what goes unmentioned in Goff's piece is that the surreal night got even more absurd when one of the scores of St. Louis fans in the stands stood up around the 15 minute mark of the second half to berate the kids on the court, pleading that they "wake up" and begging that the Billikens "do something." His screaming seemed to unnerve some of the St. Louis players and was certainly unexpected, given how horrible the game had been going for a solid twenty-five minutes at that point. The preppie GW alums around us tried to shout down the fan, but eventually (correctly) decided that it was best to let him vent in peace.
Outside of the entertainment value of the two hours (which was virtually nil, despite the rarity of the event), I left the Smith Center with an even greater appreciation for what JTIII has done with Georgetown and look forward to a much more entertaining Hoyas-Huskies matchup this afternoon.
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