WALSH: In N.J., a big piece amiss

Two things stood out Saturday in the Terrapins men's basketball team's loss to No. 5 North Carolina.

One is that the Terps need someone besides guard Terrell Stoglin to hit some big shots.

The second is that the team, as expected, is going to wear down against talented frontcourts like the Tar Heels'.

The shame of it all is the answer to both of those problems was in College Park last season. The real shame of it? He still should be.

But Jordan Williams isn't going to be donning a Terps uniform anytime soon, and his decision to enter the NBA Draft last spring will go down as a poor move for both his career and his former team.

It's difficult to knock him for it. How many people out there can honestly say they'd risk losing the chance to make millions? Had Williams remained with the Terps for his junior season, he would have done just that.

But his roller-coaster ride with the New Jersey Nets so far is evidence he needed that extra season. Despite one of the thinnest frontcourt draft pools in recent memory, Williams fell to the second round, where he wasn't even guaranteed a contract.

To his credit, he got one anyway and had himself in the best shape of his life during the summer. But by the time the NBA lockout ended, all was lost. He was in such bad shape he couldn't even finish a practice without suffering from dehydration.

"I could have prepared myself better," Williams told CSNwashington.com in December. "I wasn't sure [when the lockout] was going to end. I kept pushing it off, pushing it off."

After a stint in the NBA D-League, he's back with the Nets. In fact, in the last couple games, he's even put up some points.

But doesn't his whole up-and-down battle just to see the floor for an 8-17 team show he probably could have used another year to figure things out?

The Terps sure wish that were the case. This team would be able to compete with anybody in the ACC with a double-double machine like Williams in the paint. He would've taken some pressure off Stoglin and allowed a young frontcourt some more time to develop. And he could have even propelled his way into the first round of this year's draft and made himself a whole lot more money.

Instead, the Terps are forced to lean on a starting frontcourt of James Padgett and Ashton Pankey, whose combined 14.4 points per game is less than Williams put up last year by himself.

But his decision, right or wrong, has been made, and when the Terps take the court tonight against Clemson, they'll again have to figure out what to do with such an lackluster frontcourt.

"I've never had more trouble getting a team to be more physical on box outs," coach Mark Turgeon said after Saturday's loss. "We've worked on it, we talk about it, we work on it every day and some of it's going to be their length, but a lot it's going to be just us not competing on the glass when we need to compete. [If we] just could have gotten a couple rebounds in there, it might have been a different outcome."

It truly is a shame, because you can sense the Terps are just missing that one piece.

With Williams, the Terps are without a doubt an NCAA Tournament team that could have done some damage in the ACC in a down year for the conference.

Without him, they're a team teetering on a freefall, sitting at 3-5 in conference play with games remaining at North Carolina, No. 10 Duke and No. 19 Virginia.

A loss to Clemson tonight would spell the beginning of the end for the Terps' season, which is unfortunate. Not because they haven't exceeded expectations, but because one move by Williams sold this team down the river.

cwalsh@umdbk.com