Bob Cousy Award
The Bob Cousy Award presented by The College of the Holy Cross is an annual basketball award given by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame to the top men's collegiate point guard. It is named after six-time National Basketball Association champion Bob Cousy, who played point guard for the Boston Celtics from 1950 to 1963. Cousy won six championships with the Celtics. Annually, a list of players is nominated by college head coaches, members of College Sports Information Directors of America, members of the National Association of Basketball Coaches. A screening committee of CoSIDA members reviews the nominations, selects 16 players from each division. A selection committee appointed by the Hall selects the winner; this 30-member committee is composed of Hall of Famers, head coaches, sports information directors, the media, Cousy himself. When Maryland's Greivis Vásquez won the award in 2010, the Venezuelan became the first player born outside the U. S. to receive this award. The University of North Carolina has fielded the greatest number of award winners, with Raymond Felton winning the award in 2005, Ty Lawson receiving the honor in 2009 and Kendall Marshall winning in 2012.
Nancy Lieberman Award – the counterpart to the Bob Cousy Award. General"Winners". Bob Cousy Award. Archived from the original on April 6, 2009. Retrieved May 4, 2009. Specific Official website
Milwaukee Bucks
The Milwaukee Bucks are an American professional basketball team based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Bucks compete in the National Basketball Association as a member club of the league's Eastern Conference Central Division; the team was founded in 1968 as an expansion team, play at the Fiserv Forum. Former U. S. Senator Herb Kohl was the long-time owner of the team, but on April 16, 2014, a group led by billionaire hedge fund managers Wes Edens and Marc Lasry agreed to purchase a majority interest in the team from Kohl, a sale, approved by the owners of the NBA and its Board of Governors one month on May 16; the team is managed by Jon Horst, the team's former director of basketball operations, who took over for John Hammond in May 2017. The Bucks have won one league title, two conference titles, 14 division titles, they have featured such notable players as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Sidney Moncrief, Oscar Robertson, Bob Dandridge, Bob Lanier, Glenn Robinson, Ray Allen, Sam Cassell, Junior Bridgeman, Michael Redd, Terry Cummings, Vin Baker, Jon McGlocklin, Marques Johnson, Brian Winters.
On January 22, 1968, the NBA awarded a franchise to Milwaukee Professional Sports and Services, Inc. a group headed by Wesley Pavalon and Marvin Fishman. A fan contest was held to name the new team, with over 40,000 fans participating. While the most-voted fan entry was the Robins, named for Wisconsin's state bird, the contest judges went with the second-most popular choice, the Bucks, a reference to Wisconsin's official wild animal, the white-tailed deer. One fan, R. D. Trebilcox, was awarded a new car for his part in reasoning why the Bucks was a good nickname, saying that bucks were "spirited, good jumpers and agile." The Bucks marked a return of the NBA to Milwaukee after 13 years. In October, the Bucks played their first NBA regular-season game against the Chicago Bulls before a Milwaukee Arena crowd of 8,467; as is typical with expansion teams, the Bucks' first season was a struggle. Their first victory came in their sixth game as the Bucks beat the Detroit Pistons 134–118; the Bucks' record that year earned them a coin flip against their expansion cousins, the Phoenix Suns, to see who would get the first pick in the upcoming draft.
It was considered a foregone conclusion that the first pick in the draft would be Lew Alcindor of UCLA. The Bucks won the coin flip, but had to win a bidding war with the upstart American Basketball Association to secure him. Despite the Bucks' stroke of fortune in landing Alcindor, no one expected what happened in 1969–70, they finished with a 56–26 record – a nearly exact reversal of the previous year and good enough for the second-best record in the league, behind the New York Knicks. The 29-game improvement was the best in league history – a record which would stand for 10 years until the Boston Celtics jumped from 29 wins in 1978–79 to 61 in 1979–80; the Bucks defeated the Philadelphia 76ers in five games in the Eastern semifinals, only to be dispatched in five by the Knicks in the Eastern finals. Alcindor was a runaway selection for NBA Rookie of the Year; the following season, the Bucks got an unexpected gift when they acquired Oscar Robertson, known as the "Big O", in a trade with the Cincinnati Royals.
Subsequently, in only their third season, the Bucks finished 66–16 – the second-most wins in NBA history at the time, still the most in franchise history. During the regular season, the Bucks recorded, they steamrolled through the playoffs with a dominating 12–2 record, winning the NBA Championship on April 30, 1971, by sweeping the Baltimore Bullets in four games. By winning it all in only their third season, the Bucks became the fastest expansion team in the history of North American sports to win a championship; as of 2018, it remains the only title in team history. The Bucks remained a powerhouse for the first half of the 1970s. In 1972, they recorded their third consecutive 60-win season. During the year, Lew Alcindor changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Milwaukee beat the Warriors in the playoffs 4–1, but lost the conference finals to Los Angeles 4–2. Injuries resulted in an early 1973 playoff exit, but the Bucks were back in the 1974 NBA Finals against the Boston Celtics. In game six of the series, Abdul-Jabbar made his famous "sky hook" shot to end a classic double-overtime victory for the Bucks.
The Bucks lost the series to the Celtics. As the 1974–1975 season began, Abdul-Jabbar suffered a hand injury and the team got off to a 3–13 start. After his return, other injuries befell Milwaukee, sending them to the bottom of their division with 38 wins and 44 losses; when the season ended, Abdul-Jabbar made the stunning announcement that he no longer wished to play for the Bucks, stating that he needed the big city, requesting a trade to either Los Angeles or New York City. The front office was unable to convince him otherwise and on June 16, 1975, the Bucks pulled a mega-trade by sending Abdul-Jabbar to the Lakers for Elmore Smith, Junior Bridgeman, Brian Winters and David Meyers; the trade triggered a series of events. The Bucks' largest stockholder, cable television executive Jim Fitzgerald, opposed the trade and wanted to sell his stock. Although Fitzgerald was the largest stockholder, he did not own enough stock to control the team. After the deal, the Bucks
Atlantic Coast Conference
The Atlantic Coast Conference is a collegiate athletic conference in the United States of America in which its fifteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I, with its football teams competing in the Football Bowl Subdivision, the highest levels for athletic competition in US-based collegiate sports. The ACC sponsors competition in twenty-five sports with many of its member institutions' athletic programs held in high regard nationally. Current members of the conference are Boston College, Clemson University, Duke University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Florida State University, North Carolina State University, Syracuse University, the University of Louisville, the University of Miami, the University of North Carolina, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Virginia, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Wake Forest University. ACC teams and athletes have claimed dozens of national championships in multiple sports throughout the conference's history.
The ACC's top athletes and teams in any particular sport in a given year are considered to be among the top collegiate competitors in the nation. The conference enjoys extensive media coverage; the ACC was one of the five collegiate power conferences, which had automatic qualifying for their football champion into the Bowl Championship Series. With the advent of the College Football Playoff in 2014, the ACC is one of five conferences with a contractual tie-in to a New Year's Six bowl game, the successors to the BCS; the ACC was founded on May 8, 1953 by seven universities located in the South Atlantic States, with the University of Virginia joining in early December 1953 to bring the membership to eight. The loss of South Carolina in 1971 dropped membership to seven, while the addition of Georgia Tech in 1979 for non-football sports and 1983 for football brought it back to eight, Florida State's arrival in 1991 for non-football sports and 1992 for football increased the membership to nine. Since 2000, with the widespread reorganization of the NCAA, seven additional schools have joined, one original member has left to bring it to the current membership of 15 schools.
The additions in recent years extended the conference's footprint into the Midwest. ACC member universities represent a range of well-regarded private and public universities of various enrollment sizes, all of which participate in the Atlantic Coast Conference Academic Consortium whose purpose is to "enrich the educational missions the undergraduate student experiences, of member universities"; the ACC has 15 member institutions located within the borders of 10 states. Listed in alphabetical order, these 10 states within the ACC's geographical footprint are Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia; the geographic domain of the conference is predominantly within the Southern and Northeastern United States along the US Atlantic coast and stretches from Florida in the south to New York in the North and from Indiana in the west to Massachusetts farthest east. In two sports and baseball, the ACC is divided into two non-geographic divisions of seven teams each, labeled the "Atlantic" and "Coastal" divisions.
Notre Dame does not participate in ACC football and Syracuse does not participate in ACC baseball, leaving 14 total ACC schools for each of those sports. For all other sports, the ACC operates as a single unified league with no divisions; when Notre Dame joined the ACC, it chose to remain a football independent. However, its football team established a special scheduling arrangement with the ACC to play a rotating selection of five ACC football teams per season. Since July 1, 2014, the 15 members of the ACC are: On July 1, 2014, The University of Maryland departed for The Big Ten Conference as The University of Louisville joined from The American Athletic Conference. In 1971, The University of South Carolina left The ACC to become an independent joining The Metro Conference in 1983 and moving to its current home, The Southeastern Conference, in 1991. Full members Non-football members The ACC was established on June 14, 1953, when seven members of the Southern Conference left to form their own conference.
These seven universities became charter members of the ACC: Clemson, Maryland, North Carolina, North Carolina State, South Carolina, Wake Forest. They left due to that league's ban on post-season football play. After drafting a set of bylaws for the creation of a new league, the seven withdrew from the Southern Conference at the spring meeting on the morning of May 8, 1953 at the Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina; the bylaws were ratified on June 14, 1953, the ACC was created, becoming the second conference formed by schools collectively withdrawing from the SoCon, after the Southeastern Conference. On December 4, 1953, officials convened in Greensboro, North Carolina, admitted Virginia, a SoCon charter member, independent since 1937, into the conference. In 1960, the ACC implemented a minimum SAT score for incoming student-athletes of 750, the first conference to do so; this minimum was raised to 800 in 1964, but was struck down by a federal court in 1972. On July 1, 1971, South Carolina left the ACC to become an independent.
The ACC operated with seven members until the addition of Georgia Tech from the Metro Conference, announced on April 3, 1978 and taking effect on July 1, 1979 except in football, in which Tech would remain an independent until joining ACC football in 1983. The total number of member schools reached nine with the addition of Florida State formerl
Memphis Grizzlies
The Memphis Grizzlies are an American professional basketball team based in Memphis, Tennessee. The Grizzlies compete in the National Basketball Association as a member team of the league's Western Conference Southwest Division; the Grizzlies play their home games at FedExForum. The team is owned by Robert Pera; the Grizzlies are the only team in the major professional North American sports leagues based in the city of Memphis. The team was established as the Vancouver Grizzlies, an expansion team that joined the NBA for the 1995–96 season. After the 2000–01 season concluded, the Grizzlies moved to Memphis; the Vancouver Grizzlies were a Canadian professional basketball team based in Vancouver, British Columbia. They were part of the Midwest Division of the Western Conference of the National Basketball Association; the team was established in 1995, along with the Toronto Raptors, as part of the NBA's expansion into Canada. Following the 2000–01 season, the team relocated to Memphis, United States, were renamed as the Memphis Grizzlies.
The Grizzlies played their home games at General Motors Place for the entirety of their six seasons in Vancouver. The Vancouver Grizzlies applied to the NBA to relocate to Memphis on March 26, 2001, granted on July 3; as a result, the Grizzlies became the first major professional sports team from the "big four" major leagues to permanently play its home games in Memphis, as well as leaving the Toronto Raptors to be the only Canadian basketball team in the NBA. Memphis became the easternmost city in the Western Conference. In their first three seasons in Memphis, the Grizzlies played their home games at the Pyramid Arena. In the 2001 NBA draft, the Atlanta Hawks chose Pau Gasol as the third overall pick, traded to the Grizzlies. Forward Shane Battier was selected with the sixth pick in the same draft by the Vancouver Grizzlies, they acquired Jason Williams from the Sacramento Kings in exchange for Mike Bibby that same year. After the Grizzlies' first season in Memphis, Gasol won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award.
However, despite the strong draft class, general manager Billy Knight was let go. After Knight's departure and the season, the team hired former Los Angeles Laker and Hall of Famer Jerry West as general manager in 2002, who received the 2003–04 NBA Executive of the Year Award. After West's arrival the team was changed a great deal from Knight's team, with the removal of Sidney Lowe as head coach after 0–8 start to the season and a great deal of player movement, with players such as Mike Miller and James Posey becoming vital to the team's success. During the 2002–03 season, Hubie Brown was hired to coach the Grizzlies. Brown won the NBA Coach of the Year Award during the next season when the Grizzlies made the NBA playoffs for the first time in team history in 2004 as the sixth seed in the Western Conference in a drastic change from being perennially one of the worst teams in the NBA, they won a record 50 games under Gasol and Williams. In the playoffs they faced the San Antonio Spurs. Brown stepped down as head coach during the 2004–05 season.
At the time of his resignation, the Grizzlies had a losing record but West hired TNT analyst and former coach Mike Fratello to replace Brown. The Grizzlies' record improved and the team advanced to the postseason for the second consecutive season. However, the Grizzlies were swept out in the first round again, this time by the Phoenix Suns. After the season, which ended with anger between Fratello and many of the players, namely Bonzi Wells and Jason Williams, the team had an active 2005 off-season in which they revamped the team and added veterans. While the Grizzlies lost Wells, Stromile Swift, James Posey, they acquired Damon Stoudamire, Bobby Jackson, Hakim Warrick, Eddie Jones, they made the playoffs for the third consecutive year as well. With their record they had the fifth seed in the Western Conference playoffs and would face the Dallas Mavericks, who swept the Grizzlies in four games. Following the 2006 NBA draft, Jerry West traded Shane Battier to the Houston Rockets for their first round pick Rudy Gay and Stromile Swift.
Before the 2006–07 season, they suffered a blow when Gasol broke his left foot while playing for Spain in the World Championships. The Grizzlies started the season 5–17 without Gasol, went 1–7 while he was limited to about 25 minutes per game. At that point, Fratello was replaced by Tony Barone, Sr. as interim coach. Barone was the team's player personnel director and had never coached an NBA game though he had coached at the collegiate level for both Creighton and Texas A&M being named coach of the year in their conferences three times during his tenure; the Grizzlies finished the 2006–07 season with a league-worst 22–60 record, Jerry West announced his resignation from his position as the team's general manager shortly after the end of the regular season. The team hired Marc Iavaroni, with the Phoenix Suns as an assistant coach, to be the team's new head coach. Despite the last-place finish, the Grizzlies, who held the best chance of landing the first pick, ended up with the fourth pick in the 2007 NBA draft, with which the Grizzlies selected Mike Conley, Jr.
On June 18, 2007, the Grizzlies named former Boston Celtics general manager Chris Wallace as the team's general manager and vice president of basketball operations, replacing the retired West. A few days they hired former Philadelphia 76ers and Orlando Magic head coach Johnny Davis, longtime NBA assistant coach Gordon Chiesa, the head coach of the 2007 NBA Development League champion Dakota Wizards, David Joerger, as the team's new assistant coaches. Gene Bartow was named the Grizzlies' president of basketb
Midnight Madness (basketball)
Midnight Madness is an annual event celebrating the upcoming college basketball season in which a team opens its first official practice to the public combining it with a pep rally and other fan-friendly activities. The tradition originated from teams holding public practices at midnight on the earliest day that the National Collegiate Athletic Association would allow a practice to be held. In 2013, a new NCAA rule established some flexibility around the opening of a team's practice sessions; as a result, the dates on which teams celebrate Midnight Madness can vary, but most stick with the traditional date of a Friday night closest to October 15. Prior to the 2013–14 NCAA Division I men's basketball season men's and women's basketball teams were not permitted to practice prior to the Friday closest to October 15. Maryland Terrapins head coach Lefty Driesell began the Midnight Madness tradition at 12:03 a.m. on October 15, 1971 by inviting the public to a 1.5 mile team run. The early practice session was attended by 3,000 fans at the track surrounding Byrd Stadium on the University of Maryland campus.
Driesell continued the annual midnight practice session throughout his tenure at Maryland, brought the tradition with him when he became head coach at Georgia State University. In 2008, that school delayed the event until sunrise for the first time since Driesell established the tradition. In 1982, coach Joe B. Hall and the Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball team began to promote a celebration dubbed "Midnight Madness" as a school event with formal entertainment acts and an invited student audience; this event was held 8,500 people in the then-12,500 seat gym. Big Blue Madness is now televised and hosts celebrities including Drake, who performed in 2014. Another of the more famous events is "Late Night in the Phog" at Kansas, started in 1985 by Larry Brown and is now broadcast in live streaming video via the Internet; the event has caught on on most campuses. Some schools schedule intrasquad scrimmages, three-point shooting contests and/or slam dunk contests; the event is a co-ed event, in which both the men's and women's teams participate in the celebration at schools like the University of Connecticut, where the men's and women's teams have a combined 15 championships.
Scout.com estimated that in 2007 160 of the top blue chip high school basketball recruits in the country were attending a Midnight Madness event during the weekend that opens the basketball season. In 2013, the NCAA ruled that men's practices could begin two weeks earlier than the traditional date, so long as teams held no more than 30 days of practice in the six weeks prior to the first regular-season game; this change was made to provide more flexible scheduling that accommodated off days in the preseason practice schedule. However, the women's programs rejected moving the date forward so as not to conflict with recruiting; as a result of practices beginning so early, several teams opted to celebrate Midnight Madness in the six-week practice window. In the 21st century, most basketball programs from large Division I schools have planned a pep rally with MCs, music and other festivities to encourage support of the program. Celebrity guests and alumni participate in entertaining the students.
There is significant publicity surrounding the event, which may include televised broadcasts, published press releases and various new media exposure. Some of the more outlandish occurrences during such events included coach participation, such as Michigan State Spartans men's basketball coach Tom Izzo riding a Harley-Davidson motorcycle onto the court and Florida Gators men's basketball coach Billy Donovan rising out of a coffin. Although signing week, when top recruits sign letters of intent that commit them to specific schools, does not occur until November, blue chip high school recruits are sometimes welcomed at these events in their junior years. A prescribed number of fans receive a gifts such as t-shirts, autographs, road game vacation packages, other free paraphernalia. At many such events, a student is chosen for a half-court shot giveaway. Sometimes the events are televised live by sports networks such as the Big Ten Network, other times highlights are shown on highlight shows such as ESPN's SportsCenter.
ESPNU has begun extensive yearly coverage of midnight madness events and in 2008 televised events at Davidson College, the University of Kansas, Georgetown University, Gonzaga University and Indiana University. The events have been reported for years in print media such as newspapers and the internet. Although Midnight Madness has become a prime time event for many premier basketball programs, some schools have continued the tradition of having their first practice at 12:00 on the first day regular practice is allowed; as of 2006, the University of Kentucky held the record for attendance at this type of sports rally with an attendance of 23,312 at Rupp Arena. Kentucky has sold out Rupp Arena multiple times for what they call "Big Blue Madness" and in the 2008–09 Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball season fans had to camp out in lines for days in advance to obtain tickets. One celebratory function of the evening is to raise NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament or Final Four banners to the rafters in an official ceremony.
In 2008, both 2008 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament finalists, the Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball and Memphis Tigers men's basketball teams, did so during their respective Midnight Madness event. The October 16, 2009 celebrations occurred on many campuses and a sampling were aired on the ESPN family of
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is a men's professional basketball league in North America. It is considered to be the premier men's professional basketball league in the world; the NBA is an active member of USA Basketball, recognized by FIBA as the national governing body for basketball in the United States. The NBA is one of the four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada. NBA players are the world's best paid athletes by average annual salary per player; the league was founded in New York City on June 1946, as the Basketball Association of America. The league adopted the name National Basketball Association on August 3, 1949, after merging with the competing National Basketball League; the league's several international as well as individual team offices are directed out of its head offices located in the Olympic Tower at 645 Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. NBA Entertainment and NBA TV studios are directed out of offices located in New Jersey; the Basketball Association of America was founded in 1946 by owners of the major ice hockey arenas in the Northeastern and Midwestern United States and Canada.
On November 1, 1946, in Toronto, Canada, the Toronto Huskies hosted the New York Knickerbockers at Maple Leaf Gardens, in a game the NBA now refers to as the first game played in NBA history. The first basket was made by Ossie Schectman of the Knickerbockers. Although there had been earlier attempts at professional basketball leagues, including the American Basketball League and the NBL, the BAA was the first league to attempt to play in large arenas in major cities. During its early years, the quality of play in the BAA was not better than in competing leagues or among leading independent clubs such as the Harlem Globetrotters. For instance, the 1948 ABL finalist Baltimore Bullets moved to the BAA and won that league's 1948 title, the 1948 NBL champion Minneapolis Lakers won the 1949 BAA title. Prior to the 1948–49 season, however, NBL teams from Fort Wayne, Indianapolis and Rochester jumped to the BAA, which established the BAA as the league of choice for collegians looking to turn professional.
On August 3, 1949, the remaining NBL teams–Syracuse, Tri-Cities, Sheboygan and Waterloo–merged into the BAA. In deference to the merger and to avoid possible legal complications, the league name was changed to the present National Basketball Association though the merged league retained the BAA's governing body, including Podoloff. To this day, the NBA claims the BAA's history as its own, it now reckons the arrival of the NBL teams as an expansion, not a merger, does not recognize NBL records and statistics. The new league had seventeen franchises located in a mix of large and small cities, as well as large arenas and smaller gymnasiums and armories. In 1950, the NBA consolidated to eleven franchises, a process that continued until 1953–54, when the league reached its smallest size of eight franchises: the New York Knicks, Boston Celtics, Philadelphia Warriors, Minneapolis Lakers, Rochester Royals, Fort Wayne Pistons, Tri-Cities Blackhawks, Syracuse Nationals, all of which remain in the league today.
The process of contraction saw. The Hawks shifted from the Tri-Cities to Milwaukee in 1951, to St. Louis in 1955; the Rochester Royals moved from Rochester, New York, to Cincinnati in 1957 and the Pistons relocated from Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Detroit in 1957. Japanese-American Wataru Misaka broke the NBA color barrier in the 1947–48 season when he played for the New York Knicks, he remained the only non-white player in league history prior to the first African-American, Harold Hunter, signing with the Washington Capitols in 1950. Hunter was cut from the team during training camp, but several African-American players did play in the league that year, including Chuck Cooper with the Celtics, Nathaniel "Sweetwater" Clifton with the Knicks, Earl Lloyd with the Washington Capitols. During this period, the Minneapolis Lakers, led by center George Mikan, won five NBA Championships and established themselves as the league's first dynasty. To encourage shooting and discourage stalling, the league introduced the 24-second shot clock in 1954.
If a team does not attempt to score a field goal within 24 seconds of obtaining the ball, play is stopped and the ball given to its opponent. In 1957, rookie center Bill Russell joined the Boston Celtics, which featured guard Bob Cousy and coach Red Auerbach, went on to lead the club to eleven NBA titles in thirteen seasons. Center Wilt Chamberlain entered the league with the Warriors in 1959 and became a dominant individual star of the 1960s, setting new single game records in scoring and rebounding. Russell's rivalry with Chamberlain became one of the greatest rivalries in the history of American team sports; the 1960s were dominated by the Celtics. Led by Russell, Bob Cousy and coach Red Auerbach, Boston won eight straight championships in the NBA from 1959 to 1966; this championship streak is the longest in NBA history. They did not win the title in 1966–67, but regained it in the 1967–68 season and repeated in 1969; the domination totaled nine of the ten championship banners of the 1960s.
Through this period, the NBA continued to evolve with the shift of the Minneapolis Lakers to Los Angeles, the Philadelphia Warriors to San Francisco, the Syracuse Nationals to Philadelphia to become the Philadelphia 76ers, the St. Louis Hawks moving to Atlanta, as well as the addition of its first expansion franchises; the Chicago Packers (now Wa
Maryland Terrapins men's basketball
The Maryland Terrapins men's basketball team represents the University of Maryland in National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I competition. Maryland, a founding member of the Atlantic Coast Conference, left the ACC in 2014 to join the Big Ten Conference. Gary Williams, who coached the Terrapins from 1989 to 2011, led the program to its greatest success, including two consecutive Final Fours, which culminated in the 2002 NCAA National Championship. Under Williams, Maryland appeared in eleven straight NCAA Tournaments from 1994 to 2004, he was replaced by former Texas A&M coach Mark Turgeon. The Terrapins played in what many consider to be the greatest Atlantic Coast Conference game in history — and one of the greatest college basketball games — the championship of the 1974 ACC Men's Basketball Tournament, in which they lost 103–100 in overtime to eventual national champion North Carolina State; the game was instrumental in forcing the expansion of the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship, thus allowing for at-large bids and the inclusion of more than one team per conference.
That Maryland team, with six future NBA draft picks, is considered by many to be the greatest team not to have participated in the NCAA tournament. Before basketball became a permanent fixture in College Park, the school—then known as Maryland Agricultural College—met with little success in its intermittent attempts to establish a basketball team. A team first appeared in 1904–05, playing only two games in an intramural/club setting. Games were played sporadically during the 1910–1911, 1912–13, 1913–1914, the 1918–1919 seasons, going a combined 7–36. Basketball returned to stay for the 1923–24 season, when the school convinced former star quarterback H. Burton Shipley, coaching at the University of Delaware, to come back to his alma mater; the Old Liners, as they were known, joined the Southern Conference in their inaugural season. The team met with moderate success that year at 5–7 and played its first games against future ACC rivals North Carolina and Virginia; the Old Liners had their first sustained success over the next four seasons, finishing at or above.500 in each of them and putting together an outstanding 24–9 record against Southern Conference foes.
The Aggies played their first games against what would become their two other biggest rivals in the future during that time, North Carolina State and Duke. The school's biggest success during its formative years took place in the early 1930s, around the time it adopted its current nickname, Terrapins. After finishing second in the conference in 1930–31, Maryland won the Southern Conference tournaments, beating Louisiana State, North Carolina and Kentucky over five days, a feat they followed by winning the conference regular season crown the next year; the team had its first individual star in Louis "Bosey" Berger, named to All-America teams both seasons. It was during this stretch that the school erected a new home for its basketball teams, Ritchie Coliseum, which housed the team until Cole Field House replaced it a quarter of a century later. Although the team would remain competitive throughout the rest of the decade, finishing as high as second in the conference regular season, it never again matched its achievements of the early part of the decade, as the 1940s began, the school's basketball team fell on exceedingly hard times.
Shipley tallied just one winning season in his last seven years before stepping down to focus on coaching the baseball team, a post he'd held for his entire tenure since returning to College Park. He was succeeded by Flucie Stewart. In what would become a long-running pattern at Maryland when a long-tenured head coach stepped down, Stewart would not last long, putting together three losing seasons in three tries during his brief time at Maryland; the 1950s began with a new head coach leading Bud Millikan. A disciple of legendary coach Henry Iba, Millikan's emphasis on defense and fundamentals would become hallmarks of the program over the next two decades. Maryland reels off seven straight winning seasons under Millikan. For the 1953–54 season, the team joined North Carolina, North Carolina State, Wake Forest, Virginia and South Carolina in leaving the SoCon for the newly formed Atlantic Coast Conference; that season was the finest the Terrapins had experienced to date, finishing with a 23–7 record and a conference mark good enough for second in the league.
Maryland experienced its first games as a ranked team, spending the final nine weeks of the season ranked in the AP Top 20, peaking at #11 before settling for a final ranking of #20. It featured the school's first win over a ranked team when it beat local rival George Washington, then-number 7 in the country; the team was led by its second All-American, Gene Shue, honored in both that season and the prior year. After that season, the team remained the only school outside of the North Carolina "Big Four" – Duke, UNC, North Carolina State, Wake Forest – to field competitive teams. In the ACC's second year, the Terps cracked the top ten for the first time, peaking at #6 in January before finishing the season with a disappointing one-point loss to Virginia in the ACC Tournament quarterfinal round; the Terps had another breakout season during the 1957–58 season. After a good regular season, Maryland stunned the league by winning the ACC Tournament, including wins over #6 Duke and #13 North Carolina on back to back days to capture the title as well as the league's berth in the NCAA Tournament.
The team routed Boston College 86–63 at Madison Square Garden with just two days of rest after the ACC Tournament, advancing to the East Regionals in Charlott
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