D8 ACCMEDIADAY Duke tabbed to be


and Virginia 11th BY LIZ CLARKE


charlotte — Just seven months agoMaryland stood atop the ACC’s pecking order along withDuke—the bitterbasketball rivals having finished conference play with identical 13-3 records andanequal claimonthe regular season crown. On Wednesday the league’s


press corps anointed Duke, the defending national champion, a nearly unanimous favorite to fin- ish first in the ACC this season. Maryland was picked to finish sixth. There was no mystery behind


the dramatically divergent pro- jections. It was Greivis Vasquez — or, more specifically, the ab- sence of Vasquez, the Terrapins’ fiery four-year starter whose first act asafirst-roundNBAselection was to engulf Commissioner Da- vid Stern in a giant bear hug. In one fashion or another, the


loss of Vasquez was among the more persistent lines of inquiry as the league’s coaches and top returning playersmet withmem- bers of the media. How much do the Terps miss


Vasquez? How does Coach Gary Williams plan to replace his scor- ing?His leadership?His heart? “He did a lot for that team —


whether scoring, passing or re- bounding,” Duke’s Nolan Smith said ofVasquez.“ButIknowwhat they’re capable of. And they have a great coach. They have a lot of playerswhoare ready to step up.” Among the other hot topics: What’s the outlook for the


EZ SU


KLMNO COLLEGE BASKETBALL BIGEASTMEDIADAY


No. 1 in conference Va. Tech picked 2nd, Maryland 6th


Hoyas’ Freeman


ACC’s three newcoaches—Steve Donahue, who left Cornell to re- place Al Skinner at Boston Col- lege; Colorado’s Jeff Bzdelic, who succeeds Dino Gaudio at Wake Forest; and Brad Brownell, who fills the Clemson vacancy left by Oliver Purnell? That’s a single- season record for turnover in the tradition-laden league. And where do coaches stand


on Twitter, the social medium that fewuse themselves yet near- ly all acknowledge represents an increasing part of the fabric of their players’ lives, for better or worse? Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski


is giving his players free rein to tweet but only after reminding them that their actions, words and deeds at this stage in their life don’t just reflect on them but on the Blue Devils as a whole. “If we make a fewmistakes [in allowing players to use social media], sobeit,”Krzyzewskisaid. “If I feel the mistake is too big to be repeated again, I might take some action. But I’d rather give them the opportunity to grow.” Williams said his Terrapins


will be taking “a sabbatical” from Twitter this season, deciding to err on the side of caution. He’s permitting use of Facebook as long as it’s not after 11 p.m. In preseason voting, Duke re-


ceived 61 of the 62 first-place votes. Virginia Tech was picked second largely because the Hok- ies return all five starters and boast a particularly experienced back court. Senior guard Mal- colm Delaney was voted to the preseason all-conference team, receiving the second-highest number of votes behind Duke’s Kyle Singler, who was named preseason player of the year. Vir- ginia was selected to finish 11th in the 12-team league.


JONATHAN NEWTON/THE WASHINGTON POST


Duke’sKyle Singler is the press corps’ pick as preseason player of the year in theACC, ahead of theHokies’Malcolm Delaney.


Williamsdidn’t take issuewith


the Terps’ placement, conceding the team lost a great deal when its three leading scorers — Vasquez, LandonMilbourne and Eric Hayes — moved on after their senior years. And four practices into the


new season, Williams is hard at work installing an up-tempo de- fense designed tocompensate for any drop in scoring while shift- ing his offense to run more through his experienced bigmen inside—sophomore Jordan Wil- liams, in particular — than the senior guards the Terps relied on so heavily last season. But there was no mistaking, in


conversations with Williams, Williams and senior Dino Grego- ry, that Vasquez’s emotional presence can’t be replaced. Williams joked that Vasquez


made his presence felt every af- ternoon at about 2 p.m.—nearly two hours before practice began — when he’d show up in the basketball office and start steal- ingcandyfromthecandydish for visitors. Then the secretaries would start laughing, and the commotion would filter down the hall to Williams’s office. “He just had that way of pick-


ing everybody up,” Williams said. “You miss all that. You miss that part of Greivis that made him what he was.”


clarkel@washpost.com


in the conference BY TARIK EL-BASHIR


new york — Austin Freeman, Georgetown’s leading scorer last season, has shown that he’s capa- ble ofdominating games.Now, as theHoyas guard prepares for his senior season, he’s expected be the most dominant force in the Big East. Freeman was voted the Big


East preseason player of the year by the conference’s coaches Wednesday, joining RoyHibbert, Alonzo Mourning and Patrick Ewing (three times) as the only Hoyas to earn that distinction. “It’s an honor, but it also


means that I’m going to have to be more focused this year be- cause people are going to be coming after me,” said Freeman, whohas received the same honor from the Blue Ribbon Yearbook and also is a candidate for the John R. Wooden Award as col- lege basketball’s top player. “It’s special to be mentioned with those guys because we all know they were really great players.” Georgetown was picked to fin-


ish fourth in the coaches’ poll. A season after reaching the Big East tournament title game but then getting upset by Ohio Uni- versity in the first round of the NCAA tournament, the Hoyas bring back four starters butmust overcome the loss of center Greg Monroe,wholeft after his sopho- more season for the NBA. Hoyas guard Chris Wright, a


senior,wasnamedto the Big East preseason second team. Pittsburgh, which also has


COLLEGES Rugby rewards don’t come in the form of scholarships terrapins from D1


including ultimate Frisbee, paint- ball, ballroom dancing and bas- ketball — and an equally broad range of commitment and ambi- tion. Some are purely social; oth- ers, asgoal-oriented asanyvarsity team. Maryland’s women’s ruggers represent the latter. The squad produced its first all-American, Tanya Gouws, last season. This season, they hope to qualify for USA Rugby’s 16-team national college championship. To that end, they practice three


afternoons a week, lift weights alternate days and compete Sat- urdays in fall and spring alike. They pay $50 per semester in team dues ($25 for rookies). And they work year-round to raise their share—roughly $4,000—of the team’s $12,000 annual budget by cleaning up Cole Field House after events, laying TV cables for soccer matches, staffing souvenir stands at Washington Redskins games and hawking “Crazy Span- dex,” psychedelic, thigh-length tights that are the rageamonghip femaleathletes,whichtheybuyin bulk for $10 each and sell for $20. But they insist they love the


sport so much, it’s worth it. And they wear their passion proudly. Last year’s team T-shirt pro- claimed: “No Pads, No Helmets, Just Balls:University ofMaryland Women’sRugby.” “It feels so good to know that I


have this strength,” said Marlie Doriston, 19, a junior kinesiology major from New Jersey. “In a world where women get looked down upon for something that a man would be praised for, rugby is our way to make a statement: ‘You know what?We are bad ass- es! And we can beat you up, too!”


The next frontier? Rugby is the fastest growing


women’ssportoncollegecampus- es, according to USA Rugby, the national governing body, with 11,220 participants on more than 325 teams. As a contact sport, it represents what many believe is the next frontier for women’s ath- letics. And it’s poised to take off with itsOlympicdebutat the2016 Summer Games. Yet at most universities, teams


compete as student-run clubs rather than varsity sports. To a growing number of coaches, that’s unfair and unfortunate, particularly given rugby’s poten- tial to help fulfill the mandate of Title IX, the federal lawrequiring equal opportunity for women. So far, just four colleges have


elevated their clubs to varsity sta- tus.


Why the failing?


THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2010


is player of the year Georgetown picked to finish fourth


four returning starters, was se- lected to win the Big East’s regu- lar season crown (12 first-place votes) and was followed by Vil- lanova (one) and Syracuse (two). St. John’s, picked sixth, received the other first-place vote. “Where you are picked is irrel-


evant,” Georgetown Coach John Thompson III said during media day Wednesday at Madison Square Garden. “Withthe quality of the teams in this room,andthe players in this room, and the coaches in this room, at the end of the year, that order could be completely jumbled up and no one would be surprised.” What’s not up for debate,


though, is the player the Big East’s coaches believe will have the biggest impact on his team. Freeman averaged a team-best 16.5 points pergamelast season – 19.5 in conference play – and led all conference guards with a 52.5 shooting percentage. The 6- foot-3½ DeMatha graduate also led the league in three-point shooting (51.9 percent) and was fourth in free throw accuracy (85.6 percent). Without a star big man to rely


upon,Thompsonplans to put the ball in the hands of Freeman and fellow seniorWright – they’re the only players on the team’s media guide’s cover –andletthemcarry the scoring load. Freeman said he embraces the increased responsibility. “Coach told us from the start


that this year, it’s pretty much our team, that the focus is going to be on the guards,” Freeman said. “We have to set the tone. Me, Chris and Jason [Clark] have pretty much taken that to heart.” Freeman’s first test of the sea-


son came Wednesday morning, when he had to overcome some jitters as he stepped to the podi-


JONATHAN NEWTON/THE WASHINGTON POST


Austin Freeman joins Roy Hibbert, AlonzoMourning and Patrick Ewing as the onlyHoyas to receive the Big East honor.


um to deliver a brief speech in front of several dozen reporters, coachesandhis peers aboutwhat it means to compete in the Big East and suit up for the Hoyas. Later, the soft-spoken Mitchell- ville native was more at ease as he discussed something else he’s worked hard to overcome. Freeman missed a game in


March after learning he had dia- betes but said he hasn’t suffered any setbacks since. In fact, he said that thanks to an increased focus on conditioning and diet, he shed 11 pounds during the offseason. Freemanhas seen a significant


uptick in his scoring average and consistency each season, and there’s no reason to believe that upward trend won’t continue nowthathe’sgoing tobethe focal point of the offense and is healthy. He enters the season 27th on Georgetown’s all-time scoring list with 1,197 points, and with another big season could move into the top 10 on the all-time scoring list, past Allen Iverson, Hibbert, Jonathan Wal- lace, Jeff Green and other leg- ends of the program. “It shows that I’ve progressed


through the years,” Freeman said. “If I get there, I get there. But the main focus for me is that myteamgets better,weplay hard every game and we win.” elbashirt@washpost.com


In a rugby tradition, visiting teams are treated graciously by their hosts, soNorth Carolina players line up for a postgame buffet.


Maryland women’s rugby is a club sport, so the players raise money in interesting ways, including selling “Crazy Spandex” shorts.


and also see the Title IX benefit of 55 women playing a contact sport with minimal cost.”


Costs and benefits Yet with college and universi-


ties nationwide forced to cut spending amid the economic downturn, it’s a difficult time to add any varsity sport. Just last month California-Berkeley elimi- nated four sports and demoted a fifth (men’s rugby) to club status to pare costs. Still, Maryland’s women’s rug-


PHOTOS BY DOUG KAPUSTIN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST


After defeatingNorth Carolina, 52-22, in a recentmatch,Maryland players line up to congratulate each other. “It feels good to know that I have this strength,” juniorMarlie Doriston says.


USA Rugby was slow to trum-


pet the sport’s virtues in lobbying wary college athletic directors. And many college rugby coaches were equally wary of the NCAA’s bureaucracy, fearful it would squelch the game’s distinct cul- ture.


“Doyoureallywantpeoplewho


don’t know rugby to be in charge of rugby?” asks Christian Bitt- man, 52, a former player and ardent Terps rugby supporter.


“Whendoes more government re- ally help?” Much of rugby’s culture is rib-


ald, to put it kindly. Notably: The bacchanalian celebration that traditionally follows each game, so integral that it’s known world- wide as theThirdHalf; the bawdy drinking songs; the practice of celebrating a first career goal (known as a “try”) by streaking naked the length of the field and then “shooting the boot” (swig-


ging beer from the biggest, grimi- est shoe worn in the game). Brown Coach Kerrissa Heffer-


nan, a former member of the U.S. National Women’s Rugby team, laments the unflattering stereo- types that dog the college game. “The idea that they drink until


they strip their clothes off and fall down in based upon a couple of extreme things that have hap- pened,” Heffernan says. “Univer- sities need to bring it into the fold


by coach, Pam Gouws, believes the Terps can achieve their goals as a club. What matters most, she says, ishaving a goodrelationship with the campus administrators who oversee club sports, allocate playing fields, and this season bought a $12,000 tackling sled for the men’s and women’s rugby teams to share. “If you want to play a sport to


the fullest of your capacity, it’s in your heart,” says Gouws, 55, who isn’t paid for the 30 hours a week she devotes to the team. “No amount of money, no governing body is going to give you that.” Game days are a no-frills affair.


The ruggers’ field has no score- board, no players’ bench and no bleachers, so fans look on from


folding chairs as Gouws patrols the sideline with a clipboard plas- tered with a decal that reads, “No Whining Zone!” Just 15 minutes in, an ambu-


lance is called to ferry away an injuredNorth Carolina TarHeel. The fatigue is evident as the


game grinds on. Some players bellow forwater,androokies rush out with plastic bottles. Another cries out for her inhaler. Finally the referee’s whistle


sounds. The Terps win, 52-22. After the traditional Hip! Hip!


Hooray! for the MVP and ex- change of high-fives, the Terps and Tar Heels plop down on the field to share a meal of pasta, salad and garlic bread. Morgane Grivel, the Maryland


team president and an aerospace engineering major from Freder- ick, yearns for just one thing more. “The only thing I think would


be nice about being a varsity ath- lete is the recognition we’d get from the school,” she says. “There’s a lot of peopleoncampus who don’t even know our club exists and don’t even know what rugby is. I find that a little sad. And not just for our club, but other clubs, too.”


clarkel@washpost.com


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