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4decadedukie
01-11-2009, 08:18 AM
UMd Point Guard Vasquez's anti-Terp-fan tirades and profanities are discussed in today's DBR ACC Roundup. Of interest, however, is a major article in Sunday's Washington Post that highlights the same boorish behavior (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/press-break/).

This season, things in College Park may be disintegrating even earlier than usual. It's hard for me to imagine fan-disloyalty or player-loutishness of this sort in Durham, Chapel Hill, Winston Salem and so forth, and it couldn't happen to a more deserving program.

gw67
01-11-2009, 10:07 AM
I watched the Terps game yesterday. They are quickly turning into one of my favorite Maryland teams. They lack size and have less talent than any Maryland team of recent memory but they refuse to give up. They make up for a lack of offensive prowess with a terrific effort on defense. The DBR write-up did not do justice to the game. For the game, the Terps shot 31% from the field and 19% from behind the 3pt line. For the 1st half the shooting was much worse yet they stayed within 5 points. In the 2nd half, as often happens when a team comes back several times, the Terps went cold(er) for a couple of minutes then Tech went on a spurt and increased their lead to double digits. At that point, it appeared that the game was lost but the Terps refused to fold, played tough defense, made some shots and won going away. This is the third game this year where, IMO, last year’s team would have folded the tent and lost.

Bonner and Brandt took note of some Vasquez back-and-forth with the “fans” during the game but at the end of the game they showed Vasquez going over to the fans and shouting at them after he was fouled. He then went to the foul line and appeared to blast them rather harshly. Apparently, the lovely Terps fans used an ethnic reference in their discontent. Showing that it didn’t disturb his concentration, he made two foul shots (now 35 in a row). One only has to read the Maryland boards for a short time to realize that a segment of their fans are unhappy idiots. While he should keep from responding to jerks in the stands, I agree with him that they should just stay home if they are unhappy.

The Post has a basketball page every Sunday by one of the best basketball writers around, Eric Prisbell. Much of the page is repeated on his blog:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/press-break/

There is an article on the Vasquez situation. Vasquez complements the Duke, UNC and Virginia Tech fans. Prisbell also is high on the ACC with both Duke and UNC as two of his four No. 1 seeds.

gw67

sagegrouse
01-11-2009, 10:23 AM
Now Vasquez and the Maryland basketball team have confirmed my long-held view that UMd students and fans are jerks and losers.

sagegrouse

1Devil
01-11-2009, 11:14 AM
Imagine Hugo Chavez was good at basketball. What would you have?

devilirium
01-11-2009, 11:37 AM
Makes me a bit embarrassed too with a few select Duke students who taunted Capel. Of course, Jeff kept his cool and things got better, but I have to side with General Grievous on this one.

Olympic Fan
01-11-2009, 11:51 AM
This is not the first time that Maryland fans have gone over the top in attacking their own team.

In 2001, following Duke's "Gone in 55 Seconds" rally at College Park, the Terps went into a little tailspin -- losing (I think) four in a row. The slide culminated with a humiliating homecourt loss to Florida State (which would finish 9-21, 4-12 in the ACC).

As the Terps left the court, the crowd showered them with boos (and probably a few water bottles :)). Afterwards, a couple of Terps players expressed their disgust and made a point that the fans could go #%$$# themselves and that would play the rest of the season for themselves.

Of course, that Maryland team became the first in school history to reach the Final Four and a year later, the same players won the national title.

To be fair, there have been incidents at Duke and UNC of the fans turning on their own players. I can still recall both King Rice and Brendon Haywood being roundly booed in the Dean Dome.

I'm aware of just one incident in Cameron (and I've attended games there for more than 40 years). It was early in the 1996-97 season and senior Jeff Capel was having a horrible game against Florida State. Late in the game (which Duke would win in overtime), K turned to the bench and sent Capel to the scorer's table. The crowd made a collective noise -- to me, it sounded like a loud "Oh No!" ... others (including the Capels) thought they heard booes.

Whatever, it was wrong and a stain on the collective honor of the Cameron crowd. But it was just one instant in one game ... nothing like what the Maryland fans have put their players through.

Lord Ash
01-11-2009, 01:22 PM
So totally bizarre. Seriously, is there so much hate in College Park? Does it all stem from Gary?

just_wondering
01-11-2009, 05:25 PM
For both the Morgan State and Georgia Tech games I was able to sit in the front row of the student section because of the general apathy of the students. I was well away from Vasquez. I could see that he got very animated but could not hear what he said. I also heard the frustration that coach Williams felt in effect telling his fan base to stick it after the game.
It's heard to describe the Maryland fan base right. Half of them will yell at a player if he doesn't take a shot while the other half yells if he takes a shot and misses. They have a very low basketball IQ. I don't think that they're particularly malicious just clueless and without much impulse control. Erik Hayes bore the brunt of their displeasure in the first half. It is saying something that he came back strong in the second half. Gary loves this team and in talking about them after the game he was clearly choked up.

As a fan this has been a great year. The Terps shot 1 for 14 from 3 against Morgan State and lost. I thought that Morgan State stepped it up and won the game. Give credit to their players and the fans that supported them. Maryland was 1-14 shooting threes against Tech. You have to be thinking "here we go again". They scored 9 points in the first 10 minutes of the second half. The fans were ready to explode with boos and yet they rallied to win. A great performance by Neal, Hayes and Bowie



I watched the Terps game yesterday. They are quickly turning into one of my favorite Maryland teams. They lack size and have less talent than any Maryland team of recent memory but they refuse to give up. They make up for a lack of offensive prowess with a terrific effort on defense. The DBR write-up did not do justice to the game. For the game, the Terps shot 31% from the field and 19% from behind the 3pt line. For the 1st half the shooting was much worse yet they stayed within 5 points. In the 2nd half, as often happens when a team comes back several times, the Terps went cold(er) for a couple of minutes then Tech went on a spurt and increased their lead to double digits. At that point, it appeared that the game was lost but the Terps refused to fold, played tough defense, made some shots and won going away. This is the third game this year where, IMO, last year’s team would have folded the tent and lost.

Bonner and Brandt took note of some Vasquez back-and-forth with the “fans” during the game but at the end of the game they showed Vasquez going over to the fans and shouting at them after he was fouled. He then went to the foul line and appeared to blast them rather harshly. Apparently, the lovely Terps fans used an ethnic reference in their discontent. Showing that it didn’t disturb his concentration, he made two foul shots (now 35 in a row). One only has to read the Maryland boards for a short time to realize that a segment of their fans are unhappy idiots. While he should keep from responding to jerks in the stands, I agree with him that they should just stay home if they are unhappy.

The Post has a basketball page every Sunday by one of the best basketball writers around, Eric Prisbell. Much of the page is repeated on his blog:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/press-break/

There is an article on the Vasquez situation. Vasquez complements the Duke, UNC and Virginia Tech fans. Prisbell also is high on the ACC with both Duke and UNC as two of his four No. 1 seeds.

gw67

sagegrouse
01-11-2009, 06:45 PM
Imagine Hugo Chavez was good at basketball. What would you have?


I give up. What??

sagegrouse

1Devil
01-11-2009, 06:47 PM
I give up. What??

sagegrouse

Rhetorical question. Try to keep up.

Richard Berg
01-12-2009, 12:20 AM
A loud-mouthed Venezualan point guard??

(Does Hugo like Duke too?)

jma4life
01-12-2009, 01:51 AM
Is it a safe assumption that the Capel situation played a factor in Jason's recruitment? Not sure if Duke looked at him at all but I can't imagine seeing your brother getting boo'd would increase your likelihood of attending that school.

Either way, disappointing to here that it's happened. For all the message board hate on Paulus, and I have definitely taken part in criticizing his game (though I would argue more constructively and realistically than destructive bashing), booing a college player in-game is something I would be appalled to see. IN particular, when a player is going through a rough stretch as Paulus is now, it would just pain me to see the fans boo him. The good thing is, you can see that if anything, the students rally around Paulus when he does well which is nice to see. I know it's easier to offer support given that a. Duke is in the top 5, and b. it's not like he has a top 3 role on the team or anything but nonetheless, it's good to see the fans have his back.

Also, did K or any players say anything on the Capel situation or did they just kind of ignore it.

And finally, how well received was the Duke team and K when he first arrived. Obviously, there were boosters, etc, who wanted K gone. Was there any action taken on campus as with Digger Phelps where students routinely called for his being fired with posters, etc, while his daughter was in school no less.

And not to change the topic, but with Capel specifically, did everything end well for him. Was he active in going to the charity games, etc, or did the situation strain his relationship with Duke in any way. I'd guess much like Brand who was ticked off over the letter for a short time, at the present moment it does not bother him or does not bother him enough to strain his relationship with Duke.

1Devil
01-12-2009, 07:20 AM
A loud-mouthed Venezualan point guard??

(Does Hugo like Duke too?)

Thank you.

tbyers11
01-12-2009, 08:41 AM
Is it a safe assumption that the Capel situation played a factor in Jason's recruitment? Not sure if Duke looked at him at all but I can't imagine seeing your brother getting boo'd would increase your likelihood of attending that school.

Also, did K or any players say anything on the Capel situation or did they just kind of ignore it.

And not to change the topic, but with Capel specifically, did everything end well for him. Was he active in going to the charity games, etc, or did the situation strain his relationship with Duke in any way. I'd guess much like Brand who was ticked off over the letter for a short time, at the present moment it does not bother him or does not bother him enough to strain his relationship with Duke.

As someone who was in the student section at the game with Florida St in December 1996, I would like to reiterate what Olympic Fan said above on the Capel situation. There was no booing and there was no taunting of Capel. Coach K sent him to scorer's table to check in near the end of the second half of a close game with FSU. Capel was having a rough game (a quick check of the boxscore shows him 0-9 on FG) and a small portion of the crowd, maybe 10 or 15 people, let out a collective groan that sounded as OF put it kind of like an "Oh,no". It wasn't the finest moment for Duke fans in Cameron but it was nothing like the Vasquez incident or the Dean Dome crowd loudly booing Haywood. The entire incident seems to have increased in stature over the years.

As a Duke undergrad at the time, I don't remember there being a big hubbub about the incident at the time, but I can't say for certain if there was. The situation may have had an effect on the Capels as it came up during Jason's subsequent recruitment process and there were a few negative comments about it at the time. I don't remember if these comments came from the Capels themselves or UNC fans (hence the situation growing growing into a bigger deal well after the fact).

Others with more inside access than I (which would be everybody) have more details, but as far as I know the relationship between Capel, the Duke program and Coach K are currently fine.

Carlos
01-12-2009, 09:30 AM
Is it a safe assumption that the Capel situation played a factor in Jason's recruitment? Not sure if Duke looked at him at all but I can't imagine seeing your brother getting boo'd would increase your likelihood of attending that school.

No, Corey Maggette played a factor in Duke's interest in Jason Capel. Essentially Duke didn't have much of an interest in Capel at all.

With Shane, Carrawell, and Nate there wasn't much need for multiple recruits at the wing that year. The two primary recruits were Dane Fife and Maggette both guys who could play the 2 or 3 spot (or, in Corey's case, even the 4 in college). Bringing in Capel, who was more of a 3 or 4 didn't make a whole lot of sense especially since Duke was targeting both Casey Jacobson and Mike Dunleavy in the next class.

jimsumner
01-12-2009, 11:33 AM
"Is it a safe assumption that the Capel situation played a factor in Jason's recruitment?"

I think Duke and Jason had decided it wasn't going to work long before then. Jason said the same thing Danny Hurley said, which was that he didn't want to follow in his brother's footsteps.

My recollection of that FSU game is that groaning not booing was the order of the day.

But.

I have talked to Capel about this and he definitely remembers hearing some boos somewhere during that game. And he still remembers. But I think his relationship with K is pretty solid. He's very much a member of the family.

Irony? Capel recovered from the FSU debacle and played the best ball of his career down the stretch of his senior season. The big hero for Duke in that overtime win was Capel's senior classmate, Greg Newton.

21 points and 13 rebounds in a clutch performance that primed Newton for his stellar senior campaign.

Umm, nevermind.

Probably a message there about how much attention we should pay to one early-season performance.

FWIW, in addition to Maggette and Fife, Duke also went hard that year for Danny Miller. Duke hoped to bring in two of the three.