Recruiting
“That was a family decision,” Pratt said. “That was them sitting down and Cam being thorough on what he wanted from a program and a university.”
Whitmore joins Dickinson, Lewis, former McDonogh guard Noah Locke (Florida, Louisville) and former John Carroll star and second-year New York Knicks guard Immanuel Quickley (Kentucky) on a long list of players Turgeon missed out on over the years.
It was evident in Turgeon’s last recruiting class. Besides freshmen Julian Reese (St. Frances) and Ike Cornish (Dulaney), Turgeon filled his roster with six transfers, which has become a growing trend in college basketball because of the NCAA allowing players to transfer without sitting a year.
“I don’t think it was based on commitment,” Brand said. “I think it was based on a fit with Maryland basketball. It’s a tough job because there’s so much talent here. Which ones you miss and which ones you take, people in this area are going to be very critical about you for being able to win because you have this group of kids to choose from. Basketball is the way of life out here.”
When Maryland won the program’s lone national championship 20 years ago, the backbone of that team was local recruits such as Calvert Hall star Juan Dixon and Silver Spring native Lonny Baxter. When Dixon recalls his days wearing the red and white uniform, a huge smile stretches across his face.
For Maryland’s all-time leading scorer, there was a sense of pride playing for his hometown school. Coach Gary Williams’ persona provided even more incentive for Dixon to stay home and build a winning program.
“There was no selling,” said Dixon, now a fifth-year coach for Coppin State men’s basketball. “It was Gary Williams. He was this man that bled Maryland. Everyone believed in him, and he gave me the opportunity of a lifetime.”
Brand, a program director for the AAU’s Team Melo — backed by former Towson Catholic star and NBA veteran Carmelo Anthony — said Williams established an identity and knew how to recruit players who matched it. However, he felt Turgeon simply recruited the best players he could get.
“Talent wasn’t the issue at Maryland,” said Brand, who won three straight Class 3A state championships at Poly before stepping down in 2021. “To me, it was the identity. Who is this program? What is this program? I think it would be very advantageous to whoever comes in now to have an identity that local basketball can identify with.”
The Washington Catholic Athletic Conference has consistently produced Division I and NBA talent, while teams like DeMatha, Gonzaga, Paul VI and St. John’s are nationally ranked almost every year.
Maryland is 30 minutes away from
Gonzaga and St. John’s, an hour away from Paul VI and 13 minutes from DeMatha. Yet, during Turgeon’s tenure, Cowan, Trimble and former walk-on Reese Mona (St. John’s) were the only players from the WCAC to commit to Maryland. Bishop O’Connell senior guard Paul Lewis committed to Maryland in September of 2020 but reopened his recruitment last June.
“For 10 years, I don’t think they got a player from DeMatha, Gonzaga, or Paul VI,” Mount Saint Joseph coach Pat Clatchey said. “That’s common knowledge in the basketball community. Whoever gets the job, that has to be rectified.”
Maryland’s inability to recruit DeMatha goes beyond Turgeon, since the Terps haven’t landed a player from the powerhouse Hyattsville school since Travis Garrison, a former McDonald’s All American who played from 2002 to 2006. Since 2010, former DeMatha stars Victor Oladipo (Indiana), Quinn Cook (Duke), Jerami Grant (Syracuse) and Markelle Fultz (Washington) have gone on to have successful NBA careers.
Gonzaga coach Steve Turner has heard murmurs from people saying Turgeon didn’t recruit in the WCAC, but he said “that’s not true.” He thought Turgeon did a solid job recruiting and building relationships. However, Turner thinks players sometimes just want to leave the area and chart their own path.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” he said. “Certainly as DMV basketball lovers, we would love to see them stay, but that’s not what every kid wants to do in life. I think you have to continue to build stronger relationships and show them why [they] should stay.”
Paul VI coach Glenn Farello said he had a great relationship with Turgeon and his
coaching staff. Over the years, Turgeon extended offers to former guard Jeremy Roach, Frank Howard and Brandon Slater, all of whom decided to play elsewhere.
Even though Farello thought Turgeon recruited well, he said playing time was a factor for some.
“I know for a couple of our guys, there was a log jam of guys in their position,” Farello said. “He recruited players that were doing pretty well, and our guys had opportunities to play early on elsewhere.”
Villanova coach Jay Wright has had success recruiting in the DMV, landing players like Whitmore, former guard Phil Booth (Mount Saint Joseph) and former forward Kris Jenkins (Gonzaga), who hit the game-winning buzzer-beater in the 2016 national championship. For the two-time national champion — who reached the NCAA Tournament’s Elite Eight with a victory over Michigan on Thursday night — the appeal is obvious.
“It’s real simple. The high school leagues — and there’s many of them — are very well organized,” Wright said. “The culture in the DMV area is a basketball culture. The best athletes in that area play basketball, as opposed to other areas where the best athletes play football, and then some of them play basketball.
“The education, there’s so many great high-level educational institutions in that area, you just get the perfect mix of great student, great families, and high-level coaching. I think that’s one of the most fertile areas in the country because of those three factors.”
Willard also credited the DMV for being well-coached not only on the high school level, but the AAU.
“It’s not just because they have great players
in this area but they have great coaches,” he said.
Maryland is considered a top-15 coaching job by most in college basketball, and being in the center of the country’s recruiting hotbed is one of the biggest reasons. According to ESPN analyst and former Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg, Maryland’s ability to recruit local high school players as well as transfers from the area makes it easier for the program to make a quick turnaround.
“Maryland is a place where there’s a lot of kids from that D.C. metropolitan area that coming back home is attractive,” Greenberg said. “That’s a real positive.”
Williams, who coached Maryland for 22 seasons, said before Willard was hired that the next Terps coach will have to be involved in the area.
“I mean, there [are] too many good players here,” the Hall of Fame coach said. “You’re not going to get them all. It’s a great recruiting area but heavily recruited. Count the universities in the area and the three airports where you can get in from anywhere to see a kid play.”
Turner, Farello and Clatchey stated the obvious steps to recruiting in the area, such as building relationships with players, parents and coaches while being an active presence at high school and AAU games. But at the end of the day, Willard will have to bring a type of energy and spirit that convinces players to build a contender at their hometown school.
“There was a time when people in our area wanted to be recruited by Maryland to beat Duke,” Brand said. “It’s going to take a coach that establishes a culture where he meshes with our area in a way that brings that kind of mentality back to the young kids growing up.”