Looking Back At Some of My Favorite Final4 Teams: Maryland 2002

With the recent news of Juan Dixon somehow testing positive for steroids and Steve Blake's recent trade to the Clippers now is as good a time as any to revisit the greatest Maryland Basketball team ever, the 2002 championship squad.

In 2001 Maryland led by Lonny Baxter (fat man), Juan Dixon and Steve Blake were amongst the best teams in the country, the problem was Duke. In 2001 Duke defeated Maryland in the regular season, via their miracle minute (aka the most annoying regular season Duke moment in history) as well as in the Final Four.

In 2002 the Terps brought back their 2001 core and got maturity from rising Sophomore star Chris Wilcox. Their run through the 2002 NCAA tournaments was one of the smoothest to date. In the 6 games in the tournament that they won they never had a margin closer than 8 points. This in part was helped by Jared Jeffries whom if you remember led the Indiana Hoosiers to both a shocking upset of Duke as well as a run to the NCAA Finals. In the finals it was obvious that Jeffries was neither Carmelo Anthony nor was his supporting cast worthy of a title.

Check out a few YouTube Clips after the jump...

Vs. Duke

Juan Dixon

Steve Blake Ends UConn

Maryland Wins

Mobs After the Title Game

Comments

M E T S = Mercifully End The Season

Do it before David Wright gets Hurt!

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Numbers On Steroids: Mickey Mantle

Numbers on Steroids is a look at baseball players during the 90s to see if anything screams out at you. This week it's throwing a curve ball and looking at All Time Great Yankees. Players that we know did not take steroids to see if this gives a defense to any of the players 'convicted' by Numbers on Steroids. Time to look at my dad's favorite athlete of all time, Mickey Mantle. Averages Say: What's with the mysterious dip at 27 and then the uptick? At Bats Per Home Run Says: That's a mighty jump from 22 to 24 Explaining As If It Was the 90s If you take a look at the numbers there are two time frames which in the 1990s would be questioned. First would be the incredible leap he took from his first year in the big leagues to his first MVP season in 1956. His batting average jumped 50 points. His slugging percentage jumped 90 points and he hit 15 more homers than his previous high. This wouldn't merrit a conviction nowadays though because the young age he...

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Guest Post: Thoughts on Sabathia Signing

I asked Grutt what his thoughts were on the Sabathia signing and I thought his response pretty much nailed it. So here it is. I don’t know. Every year I get a little more disenchanted with baseball. Yea, it’s great we signed the top pitching free agent. But we were supposed to. No team was even in the ballpark of the Yankees offer yet they still needed to jump from the already ridiculous price of $140 million to $160 million to close the deal. Now I hear we are going to sign more pitchers who will also get large contracts and the position player gaps are still glaring. Each new, large contract just adds to the feeling that the Yanks are supposed to win it all. “I think we have a good chance this year.” That is a lost feeling. If they don’t win I’ll wonder why, like there has to be some other reason besides that it’s a sport you can never predict how things will work out and some years just aren’t yours to be won. If they win I will be pleasantly smug. It gets a little more...

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