Butler-VCU (or VCU-Butler) Conversation

[VaTerp]

Originally Posted by jbduke

I'm assuming you went to Maryland. If not, please ignore the rest of this post.

Three weeks ago, Shaka Smart didn't gather his team to watch the selection show because he had no expectation that they'd even be invited.

VCU's run has been nothing short of amazing, and I would be thrilled if it lasted two more games. But do five wins in a row make them a "MUCH better basketball program" than Maryland? There's an extremely strong likelihood that the person coaching VCU next season is someone that even most passionate college hoops fans haven't heard of yet. I think that is a much more accurate measure of the difference between VCU's program and Maryland's program right now.

Well, I said "at any point" and as someone else said, this year VCU made the Final Four and Maryland didn't even make the NIT. And to a larger extent, I do believe that VCU's program is in better shape relatively speaking.

In the past 5 years, VCU has made the same number of tournament appearances as Maryland and this year advanced much further than Maryland has since winning the title. Maryland has not been past the 2nd round in the past 8 years and has had one of the worst post championship runs of any NCAA champ of the last 20 years.

And as good of a game coach as Gary Williams is, he can't/won't recruit to save his life. Despite playing in a high profile conference, having great facilities, and being located right in the middle of one of the most talent rich areas in the country, Maryland has let all of the momentum of a NCAA title fall to the wayside.

VCU, on the other hand, has consistently played well for the last 10 years, put 3 young coaches on the map, and has, this year in particular, pretty much maximized their resources. So as an alum of both schools, I stand by my statement. In terms of making the most of their situations, VCU's basketball program is running circles around Maryland's right now.

Now back to discussing block/charges and all that good stuff.