11/21/24
January 29, 2010
Former Terrapin Men's Basketball Coach Millikan Dies: Before the success of Gary Williams, and the shame of Lefty Driesell, there was Bud Millikan. RIP.
posted by scully to basketball at 09:25 AM - 4 comments
I lived 1 dorm over from Len Bias when he died, and remember things a bit differently. Lefty and Wade set back Terps basketball for a while, and Gary helped restore the shine on the program.
Millikan coached before the expansion of the NCAA tournament or he might have delivered the illusive national championship that took until 2002 to deliver.
RIP, Bud.
posted by scully at 10:23 PM on January 29, 2010
Wow. Driesell was credited with saving the lives of at least 10 children from burning buildings and won the NCAA award of Valor? I had no idea they had such an award.
The only thing I remember about Gary Williams is that he jerked around South Alabama before taking the Maryland job. Not that I blame him.
I had never heard of Bud Millikan. The wikipedia article on him is painfully short.
posted by justgary at 11:52 PM on January 29, 2010
What a good guy Bud Millikan was. Everybody who misses him today knows that. He took the Maryland program a long way, from Ritchie Coliseum to Cole Field House. Guys he coached turned into successful coaches themselves. One of them won it all. That's tribute enough.
posted by Hugh Janus at 12:47 PM on January 30, 2010
Driesell was no perfect angel and did some things he should not have done, but there was also no small amount of him taking a fall after the death of Bias.
To lump his Terp career under the single word "shame" is a bit unfair.
To students at other ACC schools such as myself, Driesell was a palatable opponent. One, there was the perception that he recruited fabulous talent but didn't always know how to win with it, so we figured less talented teams like ours always had a chance against Elmore, et al.
Second, he was entertaining and unpredictable on the sideline. The hexes he put on opponents and all that stuff.
We loathed Dean Smith - the man who invented a brand of basketball so infuriatingly miserable and ugly that they had to institute a shot clock in order to get rid of it.
But we got a kick out of Driesell.