Gary Williams set the tone with his fist pump.
Putting some extra oomph into his traditional entrance, the embattled 20-year coach threw a wild swing of defiance with his right hand as he stomped out of the tunnel before the Terrapin men’s basketball team’s 73-68 win over Miami Saturday night.
And whether the fierce punch was aimed at everybody who had been taking shots at him this past week or to reassure those who are sticking behind him that he’s not backing down or to simply get the crowd and his players fired up, the dramatic arrival sent a strong message about the coach’s will.
Even if he refuses to speak on the matter, Williams’ actions alone declared: “This is still my program. You damn well better not forget that. I’m still in charge here, and if you don’t like it, you can come and get some of this.”
And so, from the fist pump before the game to the chants of “We Love Gary” in the final minute, the entire night provided Williams and the Terps with at least a temporary moment of vindication.
Saturday’s game was one the Terps absolutely needed to win – for their coach and for themselves – and the team came through.
“I just told [the team] that I was going to coach like I always coach,” Williams said. “I’ve done this too long to let anything affect the way I coach. I made them promise that they would practice the same way. We were both going to do what we could do.”
There was a little more edginess in the air than usual at Comcast Center on Saturday night, and everyone in the building seemed to know what was at stake.
Fans cheered a little louder and chanted a little longer. The players ratcheted up their intensity and actually sustained it for an entire 40 minutes. Even the always-feverish Williams appeared to have found an extra gear on the bench, and he yelled in encouragement more than usual rather than disgust.
Sure, it was just one win at home against an underachieving Hurricane team that has fallen well short of its preseason expectations, but with fans, reporters and so-called experts questioning Williams’ program and his merits as a coach – and even his own administration going behind his back in the press – the timing of this win was huge.
With several more nearly impossible tests ahead, starting Tuesday night against North Carolina in Chapel Hill, N.C., the Terps still have a long way to go before they are in the clear and in all likelihood still won’t end up where Williams and everybody else would like them to be.
But with everything crumbling around them, they showed Saturday that if they are going down, it won’t be without a fight. The win showed they still have some competitive fire left.
“We just had so much energy, and we were just so hungry tonight for a win,” forward Landon Milbourne said. “We just did everything we could.”
In essence, the Terps played the way they should have been playing all along.
They came out with great defensive intensity and forced the Hurricanes to work for their points.
They moved the ball more efficiently on offense, spreading it around and getting a complete effort from more than just one or two players. Six players finished with eight or more points.
And the Terps fed off the energy of the crowd. Jin Soo Kim, Dino Gregory and Sean Mosley threw down emphatic dunks, the Terps celebrated big plays to sustain the momentum and one solid minute carried them to the next.
Instead of fading in the second half like they have way too many times this season, the Terps kept fighting the whole way, holding off any rally the Hurricanes tried to muster.
Williams looked relieved after the game, and good for him, because he deserved this one.
But I’m sure he knows he still has a lot of fighting left to do.
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