Williams, Gilchrist, Maryland Just Try to Win

Maryland's Sterling Ledbetter drives the lane on Georgia Tech's Ismail Muhammad during the first half of the Terps' 79-79 victory Sunday. Ledbetter had five points in 12 minutes. (Joel Richardson - The Washington Post)

Most of his teammates had left the locker room when John Gilchrist asked a simple question of a team official:

"How many assists did I have?"

Maryland's junior point guard has taken his share of criticism for freelancing at times this season. Last night at Comcast Center, he was a virtuoso floor leader. Gilchrist made sure the Terrapins closed out Georgia Tech, a team that featured four starters from last season's national runner-up. Coming off the upset of second-ranked Duke in Durham, N.C., last week, the Terps beat their second Final Four team from a year ago.

Gary Williams's maddening team and its all-over-the-map point guard are maddening and all over the map no more.

Who knows what February or even tomorrow at Clemson brings. But gauging where the program has come in two short weeks, it appears there will be another March to speak of in College Park.

Gilchrist moved the ball, played under control and involved all of his Maryland teammates yesterday. He played a selfless and complete game, blending his stop-and-pop offense with savvy leadership. His numbers were not gaudy: 15 points, 7 assists and 5 rebounds. But he played all 40 minutes, helping Maryland beat a much quicker Georgia Tech team.

All the fuss about he and Williams not getting along? Buried, for now.

"You still talking about that?" Williams said after Maryland beat the 22nd-ranked Yellow Jackets, 79-71. "If I didn't like John Gilchrist, he wouldn't be playing 40 minutes for me."

"That's in the past," Gilchrist said. "I know now: Coach is going to go to bat for you if you go to bat for him."

Williams was asked in a roundabout way on Saturday afternoon if the distraction of Gilchrist possibly declaring himself for the NBA draft after the season was having a detrimental effect on Maryland's season.

"You have to put yourself in their position," Williams said. "That type of money isn't available in any other occupation for anybody that graduates from any school in the country. And so if you have the opportunity to make $2 million dollars as a 20-year-old, what do you do?

"In other words, yes, there is a value to an education. But there is also a value to making $2 million when you're 20 years old."

He knows how the process works, having lost Joe Smith, Steve Francis and Chris Wilcox to the NBA as underclassmen.

There was an agent in attendance yesterday. His name is Jeff Slade. He has a few players overseas and, like all young agents, dreams of building a client base that will one day include NBA players. He has introduced himself to Gilchrist and his father, the news of which sent the Maryland staff recently scurrying for the telephone -- presumably to tell Slade to take his paws off its student-athlete.

Of course it's not that black and white, no matter how Billy Packer and their mortified friends want to portray the dilemma.

"You just try to tell those guys to stay away," Williams said. "They don't mean anything. A player's value is a player's value. I know the NBA guys and how they think and I try to relate that to the players."

"I definitely understand their position," Slade said. "I think they should have called me if they were worried. I just don't want to put myself in a position where my integrity is being questioned."

Slade is ultra-sensitive because he sees coach and floor leader on the same page now, and he wants no part of hurting Gilchrist's play and, by association, Maryland's season. Still, he walks around the Comcast Center as if he's on a no-fly list, watched incessantly by university officials and security. It's almost comical, the idea that a fledgling agent could do more harm to the program than a winless road trip in South Carolina and Miami.

Gilchrist will not go pro because a guy like Slade is whispering in his ear. He will go because of the way he played in front of eight NBA scouts from seven different teams yesterday, all of whom had university-approved credentials in the back of press row. They came mostly to see Gilchrist and Georgia Tech point guard Jarrett Jack, whom Gilchrist outplayed. He will leave school early because of the same irony facing many ACC coaches this season: the better a point guard plays, the farther he takes his team, the more likely he won't return.

On the NBADraft.net Web site, the forecast for ACC sophomore and junior point guards returning to school is flat-out grim. Wake Forest's Chris Paul goes No. 2 in their mock draft, North Carolina's Raymond Felton is at No. 11, Gilchrist is slated to go No. 17 and Jack is projected to go 30th. It's all conjecture now, but four point guards from the same conference in one draft? And that's excluding North Carolina State's Julius Hodge, who probably could play some point at the pro level.

There were a few moments last night when Gilchrist could have gotten caught up in his own AND1 DVD, but he elected to slow it down and reset the offense. Even when his decision-making did not produce points, it gave his teammates confidence he would not use them as traffic cones when the offense broke down.

"I had a conversation with Steve Blake about" the blame that the point guard receives, Gilchrist said. "His advice was just do what you have to do to help the team win and everything else takes care of itself. I think about today now. The better I do today the better future I'll have. You just can't look past your present."

When Georgia Tech was dispatched, Gilchrist raised his fist to the crowd, slapping hands with the student body on his way to the locker room. Williams spoke to the crowd through an on-court microphone afterward, telling them sincerely: "Thanks for coming out. We appreciate it."

For the first time since the semester break, the Terps had all their students back. The building percolated with noise. Two of Maryland's young big men, Travis Garrison and Ikene Ebekwe, combined for 21 points and 24 rebounds. Chris McCray and Gilchrist were nails on defense, shutting down Jack and Will Bynum from the perimeter.

You have no idea whether John Gilchrist has more than a few months left on campus. But whatever happens, you hope that he has the opportunity to make the most of it. After all, he's only got certain chances in life to go to school -- and his whole life to work.

Enough with the mini-controversies and the criticism. It's time to let him play and let him be.