Anaheim, Calif. — Finally, in his 23rd year of coaching major college basketball, Gary Williams has guided a team to an NCAA regional final.
He's not ready to celebrate just yet.
Maryland's Lonny Baxter goes up for a shot against Georgetown's Ruben Boumtje Boumtje. Maryland won its West Regional semifinal, 76-66, on Thursday at Anaheim, Calif.
"We win one more game this year and all of a sudden, I'm a lot smarter," Williams said after third-seeded Maryland beat No. 10 Georgetown 76-66 on Thursday night in a neighborhood battle played 3,000 miles from home. "That's the way it is in college basketball. I've had a lot of good players on teams who have reached the Sweet 16."
The Terps were playing in a third-round NCAA tournament game for the fifth time in eight years, but lost the previous four times.
In his 12th year as coach of the Terrapins, Williams admitted the accomplishment did mean a lot.
"I'm not trying to low-key it," he said. "But that's something you think about later on. We've got one day to get ready for a very good team. You don't want to be satisfied."
Lonny Baxter had 26 points and 15 rebounds, and Juan Dixon added 13 points for the Terrapins (24-10), who will face top-seeded Stanford in Saturday's West Regional final. The winner advances to the Final Four.
"We really struggled early," Williams said after Maryland's ninth win in 10 games. "As we settled down, we were able to execute more and make passes."
A three-pointer by Kevin Braswell drew the Hoyas within four points before a basket by Baxter and a fast-break layup by Danny Miller made it 67-59. Georgetown wasn't closer than five points after that.
Georgetown coach Craig Esherick said the zone Maryland employed late in the first half hurt his team.
"We lost all of our momentum," Esherick said. "We had a lot of trouble getting good shots after that. And their full-court pressure when they started running at Kevin, it really bothered us. It forced us back on our heels."
Braswell, who led the Hoyas (25-8) with 17 points all but two in the second half pointed to Maryland's 51-41 rebounding advantage.
"Maryland showed that they can rebound, and we didn't stop them," Braswell said.
Demetrius Hunter added 11 points, Mike Sweetney had 10 points and 11 rebounds, and Lee Scruggs scored 10 for Georgetown.
The schools, located 15 miles apart were playing for the first time since the 1993-94 season .
No comments
Commenting is turned off for this story.