Maryland men’s basketball coach Mark Turgeon stood at the podium for less than a minute during his postgame press conference Saturday before having to fight back his emotions.
“It’s just been an amazing year,” he said before taking a long pause, reflecting on the parameters of this campaign’s perceived rebuild-turned-Big Ten threat.
Then, his voice cracked as he addressed the cyclic nature of this year’s roster, replacing four Sweet 16 starters with three rookies and enduring several injuries.
“It’s so hard to win, and we’ve made it look easy the last three years,” Turgeon continued.
“Just really proud of them. They always put the team first. They never, ever,” Turgeon said, wavering, “put themselves first. They always put the team first.”
The sixth-year coach has often displayed excitement or frustration, but the raw feelings were a public rarity.
He appreciates this year’s chemistry and coachability, and with the postseason a day from beginning in the Big Ten tournament quarterfinals, it’s time to reflect, as Turgeon did, about how extraordinary this group has been.
Start with the leader’s first example during that three-minute “soap box” of an opening statement: Maryland trailed American late in the second half on Nov. 11.
Of course, the outlook for the season less than 40 minutes after its official tip was bleak if the Terps couldn’t romp a mid-major foe that had finished with seven more losses than wins the season before.
They needed to replace four starters from last year’s Sweet 16 squad. And who was there to fill some of the holes? Three freshmen — guards Anthony Cowan and Kevin Huerter and forward Justin Jackson — who had never played together, never played with star guard Melo Trimble and never played at that high a level of competition.
Plus, the Terps’ returning role players didn’t warrant much trust. An injury forced guard Dion Wiley to redshirt last season. Centers Damonte Dodd and Michal Cekovsky received little playing time a year ago, and guards Jaylen Brantley and Jared Nickens offered meager production during that hyped season’s lukewarm finish.
“Toughness has been our motto all year,” Trimble said last week, “in the weight room, on the court and off the court.”
With that, the rookies fit in. The returners gelled. And the Terps won. And won. And won some more, entering conference play in late December with a 12-1 record.
Surely that wouldn’t last, right? Not with the rash of frontcourt injuries and daunting road stretches looming.
It did, though, resulting in the program’s best-ever start at 20-2.
“We’ve always had confidence in our abilities,” Huerter said. “We saw when we first got here and were playing pickup in the summer how good we thought we could’ve been.”
But then the Terps dropped five of their next seven games.
The slide started Feb. 4 against Purdue. Maryland led by one with six seconds left, but a defensive foul allowed the eventual Big Ten champions to escape College Park victorious.
Doesn’t it nag Turgeon that the season could’ve been even more special? With one more win and one more Boilermakers loss, the teams would have tied atop the conference standings with Maryland holding the tiebreaker. After Saturday’s win over Michigan State, the Terps would have cut down the nets as regular-season champions.
“I’m more proud of my team than I would’ve been if we’d won that day, if we would’ve won the league, because of how they reacted,” Turgeon said. “We never gave up on each other. We stuck together. We’re not the most talented group in the world, but we play together on both ends.”
Such belief, and his pride for finishing the “right way” with two wins to close out the year, is what allowed Turgeon to bust some dance moves with his players in the locker room after the thriller over Michigan State.
You should do the same — perhaps with a bit more grace and rhythm than the 52-year-old coach.
After all, the Terps are set to dance for a third straight March, and that, especially this season, is something to celebrate.
