A Night With the Terps

As you may know my 3 year old daughter was diagnosed with leukemia last October. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia to be exact.

Last Wednesday we received a call that we were invited to attend the University of Maryland men's basketball game against Longwood University. You may have heard of the University of Maryland. They used to be really good at basketball. Longwood University, as everyone knows, is the independent college from Farmer, Virginia.

We arrived about 30 minutes early at College Park and decided to drive around a bit. I thought we were in the wrong place. If it weren't for the signs indicating it was a college I would have sworn we were in a large military prison or had gone through a time warp and ended up in 1960 Stalingrad. Either way, the builders and architects are the same. I think you can describe the building style of the campus as contemporary urban ugly. Did they put any thought into designing the campus? Or was everything done as simply and as cheaply as possible? I came away from the visit with one conclusion - my children will not go to college there. And this doesn't even take into consideration the high crime at the campus and around the Prince George's County area.

Have you ever visited any of the other ACC campuses? I've been to Virginia, Virginia Tech, Duke, North Carolina, and North Carolina State. Maryland is by far the ugliest of the bunch. In fact, none of the others even come close.

Here is a view inside the arena. It's a jam-packed crowd at the fabulous Comcast Center in College Park, Maryland. Maryland students support their teams!


Here are the Terp basketball players surrendering before the game even starts! Wow, this is a bad season! We could here them shouting, "We surrender!" They must be French.


Anyway, back to the game, we walked into the Comcast Center and were directed to the box section. It was very nice. Fully stocked refrigerator, platters of chicken strips, hot dogs with chili, mozzarella sticks, brownies, potato chips, popcorn, and chocolate chip cookies. There were several comfortable seats and tables, then some bar stools with 2 bars looking out into the arena. Beyond the bar area were about 16 extremely comfortable leather seats. I now see where the University of Maryland's priorities are.

This is the view of our box from the floor seats:



The event was sponsored by Carroll Independent Fuel company. The representative from CIF said that they provide fuel for the new Crown station and the Sunoco station in Eldersburg. He was very nice and after some conversation learned that he went to Calvert Hall and actually knew some people that went to grade school with me. What a small world it is.


We got a visit from the Terrapin mascot. Not sure if he has a name. I think it might be bullet-proof. You need to be bullet-proof in this part of P.G. County.


About 15 minutes before halftime a representative from the college joined us and asked if we'd be interested in sitting in the seats down on the floor. Uh, duh! Of course! I would not miss this opportunity to see the mighty Longwood Lancer's up close and in action.

He escorted my son and me down to the seats. We finally got to our seats and we were in the folding chairs just to the right of the basket right behind the camera men. It was really cool. Missed passes were flying our way. Unfortunately, I'm not good enough with my Nikon D-40X to take action photos. They were all blurry.

This is the view of the players from our seats on the floor:


This is the view of the cheerleaders from our seats on the floor:


From a purely photographic quality perspective, this picture of the referee is one of my better shots. Probably because he was standing still.


At halftime one of the families that my wife has befriended was honored with the game ball at center court. Their daughter is 13 and is nearly done her 2 1/2 year chemotherapy treatment for leukemia. I was surprised to see and hear the crowd of 1,000 stand up and cheer for her. These were the same hostile knuckleheads that yelled, "You suck" and "F**K you" when the other team was introduced.

The game ended as I expected: Maryland more than doubling -up the Lancers 106-52. It was Gary William's 665th victory, passing the great John Wooden - coach of UCLA from the power teams of the 60's and 70's.

All in all it was a good night. I met some great people and we are truly appreciative to the people at Carroll Independent fuel for sponsoring the event for us. Support Crown and Sunoco!


I thought this dude was funny. He draped himself in the Maryland flag. I can see Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley doing this, too.


Easily the funniest thing we saw at the game - some kid dressed up as Bender from Futurama. I'm sure this was a fraternity stunt. He danced back and forth holding a sign of a tooth playing a guitar. I have no idea what this means. The Terp mascot went up to him later and gave him a hug. He even made it up on the jumbo-tron during the game.

Winthrop Dances, Again!

In case you are living under a rock and don't realize that Winthrop University is a small dynasty basketball team, then you probably didn't know that Winthrop is going to the NCAA Tournament again.

For the 8th time in 10 years, Winthrop University's basketball team has won the Big South basketball tournament. They defeated University of North Carolina at Asheville 66-48, an 18 point upset. After scoring 22 points in the first half, the Eagles were able to score another 44 points in the second half.

The win gives Winthrop their 4th consecutive appearance. Basketball fans may recall last year when Winthrop ousted Notre Dame in the first round, only to lose to Oregon in the second.

The Eagles were led by seniors Michael Jenkins who scored 33 points and Taj McCullough who scored 14. The Eagles were able to shut down 16 foot center Kenny George.

Go Winthrop!

Winthrop lost to who????

Winthrop, the former powerhouse in Division I basketball, lost a tough game last night to Mount St. Mary's University. It's the second game I have seen since graduating from Winthrop a couple of years ago. Okay, I graduated 13 years ago, but that's not the point.

Anyway, a game which was expected to be a blowout by Winthrop didn't go so well. Chris Gaynor sat out half way through the second half with 4 fouls. Neither team could hit a basket. All 85 fans were getting really frustrated. A good thing was that you could sit anywhere you wanted. Oh, well. At least I got to see them.

But how can a team that beat Georgia Tech earlier in the year, and the same team who played a close game with Mississippi last week, lose to the Mount? The Mount!!! I just don't understand. Maybe it was the crowd noise.

Fortunately, there were no fights, there were no ejections, no screaming, and no cursing at the officials. I think held my composure pretty well. And the players and coaches behaved well, too.

After the game, the mass of people filed out of the Knott Arena, which is just a little bit bigger than the Bel Air High School gymnasium, and headed home. We traversed through the metropolis of Emmitsburg, both acres of it. I didn't realize that Emmitsburg was so far out in the middle of nowhere. It took us over an hour to get there. Ugh. Getting up this morning was tough.

And I feel hung over, but all I had last night was a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese and a Diet Coke. Though I think the Quarter Pounder was made from deer meat, you know, the kind that you see in pictures of hunting magazines where little 8 year old girls are holding up the head of their latest kill? Awesome!

Sports Update

Yesterday, Winthrop defeated the lowly East Carolina Pirates from the lowly Conference USA in men's basketball, 72.-57. It obviously wasn't much of a game.

In other news, the Maryland Terps, who at 5-2 have one of the worst records in the A.C.C., defeated Illinois in the ACC/Big Ten (11) Tournament. Thus far, the A.C.C. has won 2 of the 4 games, with North Carolina and Boston College winning the other games. Unfortunately, N.C. State got crushed by Michigan State and the hapless Hokies of Virginia Tech were defeated by the hapless Penn State Nitney Lions.

In hockey, the horrible Washington Capitals continue to lose. They have the worst record in the N.H.L. at 8-15-2. They were defeated by the Hartford Whalers last night, 2-1. The Whalers continue to play under the guise of the Carolina Hurricanes. It is unknown when this practical joke will end, but it has been going on for some time now.

2007-08 NCAA Basketball Predictions

I'm not interested in who's going to win it all. It's a handful of teams that makes it every year. How surprised are people when a team from the SEC, Big East, or ACC win it? Come on really. The last 9 out of 10 champions have come from one of these 3 conferences. So we know it's most likely going to be more of the same.

However, who's going to suck next season?

Winthrop - okay, other than the people that know Rock Hill, SC, no one really cares. But to true basketball enthusiasts and Winthrop alumni, we all know that last season's #22 Winthrop is going to suck next year. Not only did coach Gregg Marshall leave for Wichita State, the school also graduated Craig Bradshaw, Torrell Martin, and Phillip Williams. And let's not forget to mention the off-season death of De'Andre Adams. That'll bring you down every time.

Kentucky - next to Duke, Kentucky has to be the greediest college basketball team in the country. The difference between the two schools is people love to hate Duke and Duke has won a championship within the past 10 years. Which is exactly why Kentucky fired coach Tubby Smith. Sure, he's run one of the most successful basketball programs in the country over the past 10 seasons. But the problem is he hasn't won a national championship. And Kentucky has never gone this long without winning one.

Come one, Kentucky was 22-12 last year. Most colleges would call this a great year. Now new head coach Billy Gillispie, the former coach of the successful Texas A&M team, will need to find a way to win a title. I predict Kentucky will give him 3 years, then fire him for sucking.

Florida - Florida? Haven't they won the last 2 national titles? Sure. But the team just got gutted. The Orlando Magic just announced that they have signed Billy Donovan to a contract for $20-some million. And many players, including Corey Brewer, Taurean Green, Al Horford, Joakim Noah, Lee Humphrey, Chris Richard, and Brett Swanson are all leaving. If memory serves me correct, basketball teams only have about 14 players, so they lost half of the team. Yeah, they're going to suck and you know it.

MD Eastern Shore - Okay, this is a no-brainer. They always suck. They always have. I don't think UMES has ever won 10 games in a season. But can you hold it against them? They play in the powerful MEAC against such thugs as Bethune-Cookman, Norfolk State, and N.C. A & T.

Biggest Turnaround?
My prediction for the biggest turnaround next season in Iona. I predict they will get 5 wins, 150% more than they had last year. Go Gaels!!!