Season Recap

REPORT CARD

The 2004-2005 men’s basketball season has come to an anti-climatic end. After limping through the entire ACC schedule (minus two heroic efforts against Duke) the Maryland Terrapins failed to reach the tournament for the first time since the 1992-1993 season. Though the Terps did show signs of turning things around in the NIT, in the end the year wrapped up just how they played all season, flat.

It goes without saying that the season was a huge disappointment for all the Terp followers. During the year we took time out to look at everyone’s performance game for game (well most games). We noted what they did well and what they did bad, and most importantly we assigned a grade to each and everyone of them. Now it is time to reveal who is to blame for what, who really was the MVP, and who really chocked their chicken in the clutch. So here is the 2004-2005 report card:

Player	Grade	Points	Comments
Travis Garrison	C	2.17	NIT was the only thing that kept him from being held back a grade.
Nik Caner Medley	B-	2.65	Highest GPA and most consistent player all year, and that right there sums up our year.
Ekene Ibekwe	C	1.90	6 A’s and 6 F’s make him the most up and down player of the year.
John Gilchrist	B-	2.51	Early season work preserves his B average, but didn’t finish the year as a B student.
Chris McCray	C+	2.47	Second half team MVP, but first half slacking kept him from a B.
DJ Strawberry	C	2.29	Injured early, wasn’t able to rebound his average from slow start.
Sterling Ledbetter	C	2.19	Missed a lot of games early, like McCray really brought up grades in second half.
James Gist	B-	2.51	6 A’s to 2 F’s, looks to be dean’s list candidate in 2006. Highest freshman GPA (he, he).
Mike Jones	C	2.21	Like Ibekwe, brought A game or no game. If he can limit the D’s and F’s, look out.
Wil Bowers	D+	1.48	We’ll call him the bell curve, flat in the beginning, rises up sharply in middle, then flat at the end.
Darian Henery	B-	2.5	Anyone see “Summer School”, he is like the kid that goes to the bathroom on the first day and doesn’t return till the final……and passes.
Mike Grinnon	C	2.25	Instead of the Mayor, lets just call him the “C”enior.
Gini Chikura	C	2.00	Gini we hardly knew ye.
TEAM	C	2.26	When the team GPA edges out Mike Grinnon by one hundredth of a point, you don’t have to be a genius to figure out we had a terrible year.

Side notes:

Our highest team GPA games were:

Duke in CP 3.42

Davidson in CP 3.22

TCU in CP 3.09

The “WTF” award goes to us giving the team a 2.50 for the Memphis game. Boy were we a spoiled bunch of SOB’s back then.

The Duke GPA was 3.18. Apparently beating them in College Park is worth 3.42, but beating them in their own building is only worth 2.94. That isn’t even a solid B for crying out loud.

The first NC State game was the lowest GPA of the year (of the games we graded), which registered a 1.13. Only NCM got above a 2.0 in that effort.

Only one game did the team actually combine for the team average. It was a 2.26 effort against George Washington. And for those who don’t remember, it was a loss.

So there is your 2004-2005 Report Card. Not exactly refrigerator material. In fact you could better call it “Exhibit K” in the case of the University of Maryland vs. Denton 7 tailgate.com. Better known as the Case of the D-7 curse. Looking forward to next year where we will once again plot the success and failure of our “Free State Warriors”. Have a great summer, and if your name is on the above list, spend your free time wisely, like on the court.

Now on to the Predictions

For those of you who forgot about the predictions we made back in November well guess what, it is time to take a look. We all know how successful the football predictions were so don’t think that these were any better. The scoring was done as such, you received a point for each place you were wrong for a team. For example if you had UNC coming in 2^nd and they finished 1^st you got 1 point. If you had Clemson coming in 11^th and they came in 8^th you received 3 points. Keep in mind much like golf you want the lowest score possible. So the 2004-2005 Basketball prognosticator of the year award goes to Chris! Congratulations Chris on winning an award, which really isn’t an award and doesn’t really get you anything. But at least you can look down on us, and after all that is what competition is all about.

Chris- 18

Bob- 20

John, and J- 22

Cory, Justin, and Andrew- 24

Matt G- 26

Brian- 30

The site score was 23.

Chris- The one thing that is apparent is that Chris knows a heck of a lot more about last place than he does first. His picks were bottom heavy but paid out regardless. He nailed FSU at 11, Clemson at 9, Miami at 8, NC State at 6, and Wake at 2. The Yellow Jackets to win it all obviously didn’t pan out, but when your competition is us, you can get away with that sort of stuff. Worst pick was VT which is a sentence I have a feeling I am going to be cutting and pasting a lot here.

Bob- Not to brag but I did pretty well, Virginia Tech cost me 6 points otherwise I would be congratulating myself. I missed UVA by 3 spots but no other team was off by more than a spot or two. On the other hand NC State was the only prediction I got correct.

John- An above average finish for John. Had the smarts to pick VT at 8 which cost him only 3 points, which is BY FAR the best pick anyone had for the Hokies. Nailed Clemson at 9, and FSU in last. The Terps coming in second was killer though for more than just the predictions. But when you live by the Terps you also die by them and they drug John down to a 3^rd place tie.

J- Though John and J tied I put John’s name first since he had the Terps second, but J’s picks were just as solid. He nailed Wake (I still laugh every time I type that) at 2^nd, and got the ACC predictions lay up of FSU in last. Va Tech in 10^th, UVA in 7^th, and Tech and Maryland at 1^st and 4^th respectively were his undoing. But at least he beat the site average of 23.

The Site- Some people say that when people put their minds together great things can be accomplished. Well those people are stupid. Combine D-7’s best and brightest and you get a very average pick. We together scored a 23 which is not really impressive, but is still better than the 25 we got together for football. Which just goes to show you we don’t know anything about either sport.

Andrew- Bel Air’s newest home owner clocked in with a 24, reasonable but when you realize who you tied with it kind of puts things in perspective. Andrew did not make one correct pick but at the same time had a bunch of picks that were only off by one spot. Like the rest he suffered by the Va Tech pick and followed his heart down the wrong path with the Terps. Oh and UVA also underachieved way too much, but Pete Gillen thanks you for your support.

Cory- The only D7 District resident also chipped in for 24 points. He got UNC correct (The only one to successfully predict this years ACC Champion, golf clap everyone). But suffered having the Terps at 3, Wake at 6, and Va Tech last. Also got Georgia Tech right, but it wasn’t enough to pull him ahead of Andrew and Justin. Good thing Pitt isn’t in the ACC as well or else it probably would have costed him another 9-10 points.

Justin- The product of politics and tobacco showed an incredible knack for picking correctly nailing 3. (Enjoy that phrase, this is the only time you will ever hear your name and nailing 3 of anything in the same sentence). However equally amazing was his ability to completely miss other teams. GT in 1^st?! MD 4^th! FSU at 7^th (Why is it whenever one of the D-7 member falls in love it affects their predicting ability? John and Wake and Justin and any Florida school?). I guess now that Erin is back in the Old Line State (as opposed to the Old People State) he will regain his senses.

Matt- Well you can’t say anything bad about his football forecasting skills. That is the good news, the bad news is MD in 3^rd, UNC in 5^th! UVA in 7^th and FSU in 8^th. It goes on and on, well except for Wake and Clemson, he drilled both of those. But much like Justin it was pretty much hit or miss for Matt this year.

Brian- Well someone had to do it. I knew it wasn’t going to be me (though I thought about it), but you knew it was going to happen. Snively had Maryland in First and Duke in last which about sums up his point total. I won’t ridicule, in fact I wish I was that ballsy (by the way when you type “ballsy” in Word spell check does not come up, try it, I dare you), but there is a place in basketball predicting for those who pick with their heart, and that sadly in this case is last. Way to go out on a limb though. Maybe next year.

And that does it for another year of predicting where our favorite and not so favorite ACC teams will finish. The bar has been set, the champions have been crowned and now we can all focus on Spring Football and a summer of a slow agonizing countdown until the next kickoff. Til then Go Terps!