The history and tradition of Nebraska football have meant nothing since January of 2002, when the Cornhuskers played — and lost to — Miami for the national championship.
The history and tradition of Maryland basketball have meant nothing since April of 2002, when the Terrapins played — and defeated — Indiana for their first national championship.
It is a fascinating and puzzling reality: Maryland rose to the top of college basketball and seemingly could do no wrong in the early spring of 2002.
Not only have the Terps not been back to the Final Four in any subsequent year; they haven’t even made the Elite Eight once. They have made two Sweet 16s. They have never been seeded higher than No. 4 in the NCAA Tournament. Even when Maryland reached the Sweet 16 in the 2016 NCAA Tournament, the Terrapins underachieved. They had the raw talent of a No. 2 or No. 1 seed, but didn’t mesh on the court. Kansas handled Maryland relatively easily in the Sweet 16, 79-63. A frustrating season came to an end.
Imagine being in the old Georgia Dome (a building which no longer exists) on that Monday night in 2002 when Maryland won the national title. Imagine having someone come up to you and say that the Terrapins would not make another Elite Eight or earn a top-three NCAA Tournament seed in the next 17 years. You would have told that person s/he was completely crazy and needed to get clinical help. Yet, here we are.
Maryland played in the 1974 ACC Tournament final, one of the best and most important college basketball games of all time. That game was a winner-take-all play-in game for the NCAA Tournament. The small size of the field at that time prevented “at-large” teams from representing Power Five conferences. The ACC sent only its tournament champion into the NCAA Tournament. Seeing how great Maryland played in a close loss to North Carolina State, the NCAA realized how dumb it was to deprive second-place teams in conferences of a tournament berth.
Eleven years after that 1974 ACC Tournament final, the NCAA Tournament had more than doubled in size to 64 teams. Maryland helped the NCAA Tournament become what it is today. Maryland owns a significant place in the evolution of America’s favorite bracketed basketball tournament.
After that seminal 1974 season, Maryland made several NCAA Tournament appearances under Lefty Driesell. The Terps were responsible for the tournament’s expanded size, and they used that expansion to become a regular part of March Madness. They earned top-three NCAA seeds on multiple occasions. Then, after a few down years in the late 1980s, Gary Williams came aboard in late 1989 and restored the program. Maryland made the NCAAs in 11 straight years, with 2002 being the zenith. Maryland was a top-three seed in the NCAA Tournament in five of those 11 years. This program had arrived.
It is jarring how barren the trophy case has been since 2002. It is also a jolt to the senses to realize that Maryland hasn’t had a top-three seed since its national championship. Yet, another part of the story of Maryland’s failures this century is the struggle of head coach Mark Turgeon.
On paper, Turgeon has everything a coach could possibly want: He was coached by Larry Brown at Kansas. He made the Sweet 16 at Wichita State. He turned Texas A&M into a regular NCAA Tournament team. He ascended the ranks. He built toward a Cadillac job. His progression was unmistakable. Maryland was supposed to be the culmination of his career and the place where Turgeon cemented his college basketball legacy.
It has never worked out that way… and more precisely, it has never been especially close to becoming reality. This season, Maryland offers no indication that a return to glory is just around the corner.
If the second half of the 20th century suggested that Maryland would be a 21st-century force in college basketball, and that Wisconsin would be a non-factor in college hoops, history has offered a reminder in the first 20 years of the new century: It hardly offers guarantees. The course of human events can — and does — change sharply.