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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Lou Holtz is the Homer / Annoyingly Delusional

As my buddy Joe and I always joke, if Notre Dame was suiting up against an all Jesus team, aka a team made up of 55 Sons of God, Lou Holtz would probably still pick Notre Dame to win by a touchdown. So of course this weekend when I'm watching Sportscenter and they have him and fellow old man Corso making predictions, Lou picks ND to beat Michigan. Not that big of a deal, Michigan is a big question mark this year, but of course than Lou says that Notre Dame will win 11 games this year. This is the same Notre Dame that lost to a service academy last year. And just when you thought the douchy homerism was going to end ESPN asks which BCS school is going to be the biggest surprise team in the country. Any guesses to whom it was? I'll give you a clue it was another team he coached. If you guessed South Carolina you would be a winner. Next up on Lou's prediction watch, the Jets win the Superbowl, NC St. wins the ACC, Arkansas dominates the SEC West, Minnesota wins the Big...

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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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