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It may be time to ask: what's wrong with Notre Dame? The Irish struggled with Delaware over the weekend and then had a serious tussle with Bryant in the Gotham Classic. Bryant in fact was within four with less than two minutes to go. Considering that Notre Dame held its own in the Big East the last several years, the last couple of games are hard to understand. Toss in the ISU loss and the feckless defense against Iowa in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, and Mike Brey might not be sleeping so well.
The Irish have North Dakota State next, but after that things get real in a hurry: between December 14th and January 4th, Brey has lined up Indiana, Ohio State and Duke, with only Canisius for relief on the 29th.
That's not going to be an easy stretch.
Look, we understand Maryland is going through a similar rough patch. We thought Mark Turgeon was an excellent hire and in fact he has already completely changed Terrapin recruiting. But comments like this about Maryland's woes don't sound good:
“I was really proud of my team. Tried hard. We don’t have a lot of things going our way right now, whether it’s balls going in and out, guys making tough shots against us, no whistles, it’s a lot of things not going our way right now. We never quit. Had a chance to win it.”
There's always been this tendency in the Maryland camp to blame someone else. The ACC kept Lefty from winning the tournament. It was unfair to have it in North Carolina. Duke got all the calls.
And now, Turgeon joins the chorus of excuses. It may not be surprising because everyone who has gone to College Park has eventually adopted the party line of being persecuted and conspired against, but it sure is disappointing.
Leaving Coach K out of it for the moment, do you think for one second that say Roy Williams would work there and whine the way Maryland coaches always have? It's a pretty pathetic condition going back to at least 1969. Driesell went from promising the UCLA of the East to complaining about the ACC and then, when Dean Smith left the room, telling the other coaches that "we gotta get that guy."
Even Bob Wade suggested that people were out to get him during his brief time in College Park, and don't get us started on Gary Williams, who at the Final Four barked at the refs "how much do you want Duke to win!" The fact that his players had an emotional and competitive meltdown apparently was irrelevant.
And now Turgeon. There seems to be no escaping the history of whining, complaining and denying responsibility at College Park. We expected him to be different, but apparently not.
Small bit of Terp trivia: Driesell was a Christmas baby, born at the height of the depression. Can you imagine how difficult that might have been? He also overlapped at Duke with Dick Groat, something we've never really thought about. It's also never occurred to us to wonder if Driesell, son of German immigrants, speaks German. If he does, it's with an amazing accent.