It’s on to Round 2
Terps earn date with Alabama after beating Huskies
Hakim Hart broke free from Connecticut’s desperate full-court press and slammed home a dunk that sent the limited Maryland faithful at Mackey Arena wild.
On the other end of the court, the sophomore guard took a blow to the face that was ruled a charge. He lay on the ground for a moment before jumping to his feet to celebrate exuberantly with his teammates.
“We Want ’Bama! We Want ’Bama!” the Maryland crowd chanted with 24 seconds left.
After a 63-54 win over No. 7 UConn on Saturday night, the Terps are staying in Indianapolis for a Round of 32 matchup with second-seeded Alabama on
Monday.
Junior guard Eric Ayala led Maryland (17-13) with 23 points, including 14 in the first half. Junior guard Aaron Wiggins and sophomore forward Donta Scott added 14 and 12, respectively.
James Bouknight, a first-team All-Big East selection, led UConn (15-8) with 15 points on 6-for-16 shooting. UConn shot a season-low 32.3% from the field in the game.
Despite giving up 18 first-half rebounds, Maryland led 33-22 at halftime off the strength of a defense that limited UConn to 23% shooting from the field and Ayala’s strong half.
ces, from 1993-97, he led the Panthers to four Baltimore Catholic League championship games with the team winning the last three. A 6-foot-5 forward for most of his career, he was named the BCL’s Player of the Year and tournament Most Valuable Player in each of the final three years.
“When Mark came in as a freshman, he dominated our practice,” said former St. Frances coach William Wells. “He went in the ninth grade as a center for us — he was a center, a forward and a guard — and all the way through he just improved, improved, improved. He turned out to be a man against kids in high school.”
To commemorate the BCL’s 50th season, The Baltimore Sun recognizes Karcher — a charter member of the league’s Hall of Fame in 2011 — as the league’s all-time greatest player.
Over the decades, the BCL has produced a steady stream of standout players. Among them: Loyola Blakefield’s Pete Budko and Tony Guy; Cardinal Gibbons’ Quintin Dailey and Steve Wojciechowski; St. Maria Goretti’s Rodney Monroe; Calvert Hall’s Duane Ferrell and Juan Dixon; Towson Catholic’s Carmelo Anthony; Archbishop Spalding’s Rudy Gay and Derrick Snowden; Mount Saint Joseph’s Will Thomas and Phil Booth; and St. Frances’ Adrian “Ace” Baldwin.
In the 2020 NBA draft, Mount Saint Joe’s Jalen Smith and John Carroll’s Immanuel Quickley became the first BCL alum to be first-round selections in the same year.
Karcher’s body of work at St. Frances — his individual and team accomplishments during those high school days serving as the primary criteria in The Sun’s selection — was unmatched.
He averaged 16 points a game as a freshman and his production increased every year. In his senior year, when he repeated as The Sun’s All-Metro Player of the Year, Karcher averaged 28.7 points, 8.8 rebounds, 6.5 assists and 3.4 steals.
“Besides his physical stature — he was a man at an early age — and had great physical talent, I think his basketball IQ and knowing how to play the game and how to best use his talent stood apart,” said BCL Commissioner Jack Degele. “He was very mature and physically dominating besides all of his talent, and you rarely get all those ingredients in one player.”
Karcher says his preparation — aided by regularly playing in older age groups in recreation ball and constantly finding the toughest blacktop games with the more experienced, star-studded crowd — helped him enjoy his high school success.
“I played a lot and always wanted to get better,” he said. “I knew I wasn’t the most athletic guy on the court, but I had a high IQ for the game, I could think the game through before it was played.
“During the offseason I pushed myself to get better, challenged myself against guys that I felt were great players, and I just used that edge and told myself, ‘If I can play with these guys, there’s no way I won’t dominate the Catholic League.’ ”
Finding his HS home
Coming out of Herring Run Middle School, Karcher thought he would play at powerhouse Dunbar, but established a new plan one summer day before his freshman year.
A neighborhood friend who played at St. Frances was going to play in a Craig Cromwell rec league game in the dome and asked Karcher if he wanted to come along.
Coach Wells, the program’s director, asked if he wanted to play.
“I’ve never turned down a game of basketball, so I said ‘Yeah, I’ll play,’ ” Karcher said.
“Little did I know, the only way I could play was I had to first talk with Sister John Francis and tell her I’m interested in coming to St. Frances. At the time, I was just trying to get me some bump under the dome because the dome was the thing to play in at the time.”
He got permission, played well and felt at home alongside the St. Frances players.
“And then I went home and spoke with
my grandmother, told her about it. She was really big on education and me coming from a public middle school and going to a Catholic high school, she was really for it,” he said.
Sister John Francis then insisted Karcher pass an extra class taken on Saturdays before he became eligible to play, which he did.
Wells said: “After that, the rest is history.”
Proving an instant success
From the start, every gym he played in was packed and often standing room only. They all came to see Karcher, who came to St. Frances with a 6-foot-3 frame that wouldn’t fully fill out until the years to come with two more inches added.
He immediately showed off a versatile game — relying on physical play, smart positioning and game sense beyond his years — and more than held his own against bigger and older competition.
If an opposing team guarded him with a bigger player, he would expose him on the outside.
If a smaller player was on him, he could bully him inside.
Wells immediately sensed his star freshman was the missing piece that turned an average team into a great one as the Panthers went from being a .500 team the year before to reaching the BCL championship game.
And while they let a late lead slip away against a senior-laden Cardinal Gibbons team led by Wojciechowski, the setback helped define the rest of Karcher’s time at St. Frances.
“It was an eye opener for me — playing against Wojo, Josh Davalli and even the Gibbons history,” he said. “When we lost, it was just something that I looked around and I was young and didn’t understand how important it was to win a BCL championship until I looked into Wells’ eyes. Then he sat me down the next summer and it made a lot of sense for me. From then on, it was just I got to bring it every game for the team and the school.”
The three-year roll
For Karcher, winning brought satisfaction and was for everybody involved to enjoy. But losing was a different kind of emotion, it was always more on him as the team’s established leader. After the championship game loss as a freshman, he and the Panthers never lost another BCL playoff game.
“Starting out, Mark made you want to be better,” said teammate Darien Byrd.
“Playing around him, everybody had roles and he held you accountable for your role. You had to know your position and know your role. So playing with him was excellent because he made you better at your position.”
Byrd’s role on the Panthers’ championship team was defending against the opponent’s top threat while chipping in his 10 to 15 points a game.
Following one season, Karcher made Byrd a trophy to recognize his stellar defense and hard work.
“He appreciated everything and I can tell you that from him coming to me and just saying ‘Listen, If I didn’t do my job then he would have just been a guy scoring 30 on a losing team,’ “Byrd said. “So he would always come to me, even to this day, we still talk about it and he’d be like ‘I’m glad you did what you did on your end.’ ”
During Karcher’s four years, the Panthers owned a 120-25 record and proved untouchable after the freshman-season hiccup against Cardinal
Gibbons. Each of the three BCL championship-game wins that followed came against Calvert Hall.
His performance in the title game of his junior year stood out. With the game tied at 60 in the closing minutes, he scored six straight points in 14 seconds — a 3-pointer followed by a three-point play — to cap a 26-point performance in the 71-67 win.
“He just did everything well,” said Calvert Hall coach Mark Amatucci. “He could shoot the ball and if you didn’t know where he was, he was hitting the offensive boards. When he wanted to stop somebody or take over a game, he could do it.”
Achieving a season’s ultimate goal
For St. Frances, every season’s big goal is getting an invite to the Alhambra Catholic Invitational Tournament and the ultimate goal is winning it.
On March 16, 1996, there were 1,400plus fans at Frostburg State to watch the Panthers take on D.C. power Gonzaga in the championship game. Karcher scored 16 points in the 61-46 win and was named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player.
The win ended a 14-year drought for BCL teams in the prestigious tournament — Calvert Hall had won it in 1982 — and no BCL team has won since.
For Karcher, it was an occasion when the joy of winning outweighed the pain of losing.
“Alhambra is hands down one of the best tournaments I’ve every played in and it was everything about it — the competitiveness, the teams, the coaches and they way they treat you. And just to win it all, I knew we were stamped in history,” he said.
After St. Frances
Karcher went on to play three years at Temple under coach John Chaney before entering in the 2000 NBA Draft after his junior season. A second-round pick by the Philadelphia 76ers, he never played in a regular-season game. After playing professionally overseas for seven years — mostly in France — he returned to Baltimore and was head coach at St. Frances for three years.
Today, Karcher runs a mental health program and his top priority is helping raise his 15-year-old son, Kodee, who plays soccer at Centennial High.
His son likes to pick his brain about his playing days. What was it like to be a McDonald’s All American? How did I handle myself with all the attention?
His constant message to his son is success is about dedication and preparation.
“I tell him all the time whatever you put in is what you get out,” he said. “It was a good thing for me to go to St. Frances. As I explain to my son, you just want to take a chance and put yourself at a certain level.”