Maryland men's and women's basketball

Yesterday's disappointing loss by the Maryland women's basketball team in the regional finals only further reinforces the polar opposite approaches used by our Brenda Frese and Gary Williams. I had already previously (jokingly) suggested that Brenda Frese should do all the recruiting, and that Gary Williams should do all the pre-game and in-game coaching, for both teams. While Gary has been criticized for his poor recruiting results, Brenda refuses to teach team defense and clearly lacks the ability to make important in-game tactical adjustments. Next season, when the Lady Terps are in need of points, Brenda will not be able to simply hand the ball to Kristi Tolliver or Marissa Coleman and say "go make a play" to save them from their defensive inadequacies.

Can you imagine Gary and Brenda on the sideline together? Imagine Gary drawing up a momentum-changing play to get the Lady Terps a key bucket, or using a profanity-laced tirade to get the women to actually move their feet and to play harder on defense. Meanwhile, Brenda can prowl the sidelines with passionate clapping and encouraging, confidence-restoring words to the men on the bench after Gary has finished berating them!

Marissa Coleman and the Lady Terps

Lost amongst all the effusive praise and accolades surrounding Marissa Coleman’s “heirloom game” in yesterday’s NCAA women’s basketball regional semi-final was the fact that Coleman’s very average defensive performance led directly to dozens of quality Vanderbilt opportunities and scores. While playing 40 minutes will certainly take its toll toward the end of a game, this does not explain why the worst of the Coleman’s and the rest of the Terps’ defense play was at the beginning of each half. If Coach Frese, Marissa Coleman and the rest of the Terps don’t take their defense more seriously, they will not win another national championship. Maryland can probably beat less talented teams by relying on their stars to come up with clutch performances to compensate for an inferior defensive effort, but this probably won’t work against Stanford or UConn.