Last night’s William & Mary – Maryland game played out like some wonderful Maryland Hater’s dream. Athletically superior Maryland players clumsily trying to defend a perfectly executed back door cut. A sweaty Gary Williams stood on the sideline with his mouth agape and hands on his hips - with a "why the hell did I schedule this game?" look on his face. Greivis Vasquez hogging the ball in the last minute, shooting off balance three pointers and driving recklessly to the basket in an effort to boost his own stats. And finally, the crowning moment – Gary sharing a 0.2 second handshake with the man who completely outcoached him (William & Mary’s Tony Shaver) and rushing off the court in exasperation, a final classless touch from a sore loser. You could not have scripted this better in Hollywood.
So many things made this such a masterpiece. Foremost, it is the fact that Gary Williams has spent years downplaying the achievements of mid-majors in the Missouri Valley and CAA, often boasting how far superior teams in the ACC are. That’s fine, but Gary Williams takes the coward route and won’t play them. After yet another losing ACC season (and NIT appearance) in 2006, Gary famously said of playing MVC schools and their "inflated" RPI’s:
"They haven't been banging down anyone's door in the ACC to play. The phone works both ways, last time I checked."
But Gary apparently doesn’t hear the phone ring because he would rather jump off a bridge than play a good CAA or MVC team. Maryland is too "elite" to do that. One can only conclude that Gary perused the early season CAA previews and saw the lowly William & Mary Tribe picked tenth in the CAA and decided to take a miniscule chance that he doesnt usually take and play the tiny egghead school from Williamsburg. He paid dearly.
Most importantly, Maryland is winding up their nonconference schedule with zero good wins, meaning they have to go nuts in the ACC to deserve an at-large bid (although when Maryland is involved “deserve” and “receive” are completely unrelated to the Selection Committee) and William & Mary completed a tournament-worthy nonconference run with another great road win. What makes this better – the fact that Tony Shaver is a dead ringer for that jackass guy from Depair.com? Or having the chance to tell Gary that beating Maryland is probably only William & Mary’s fourth best win of the season?
