Dec. 3, 2008
OSC Wrap-Up: Year of a Million Dreams
The week started out slowly with a grind it out win over a scrappy Wichita State team on Thanksgiving Day, followed by a tough loss to an unconscious shooting afternoon by an athletic and talented Tennessee squad that threatened to sour the weekend.
However, that loss set up the match up that many of us have waited years to see again: the Hoyas taking on 
local rival Maryland. Most of the games that heated this rivalry up in the first place occurred during my time as a student and, coupled with our string of victories over highly ranked Syracuse during the same time frame, signaled the Hoyas' arrival on the national scene as a true power program. A 68-65 win in 1978 over the 19th-ranked Terps in Landover was followed by two wins the next season, 83-71 at the DC Armory and 74-68 in the NCAA East Regional Semifinals. Alas, the tense battles of the past were not replicated on OSC Sunday as the Hoyas dominated from the start and cruised to an extermination of the listless Terps to capture third place. To the surprise of the cheerleading squad, those in attendance (primarily alumni, HHC members, and family members of the team) were loud and coordinated in our support of the Hoyas. The significance of the game was matched only by our astonishment and delight in the result.
The weekend turned out well for this young Hoyas team and Disney's Year of a Million Dreams promotion delivered not the championship dream we were hoping to see but the next best thing. There was evident growth from game to game and while turnovers continue to be a problem, you could see problems being corrected and improvement being made with each game. It is also clear that Coach Thompson's plan to challenge his young but very talented squad with a series of tough games in the pre-Big East schedule may well pay off.
A few more photos from the Maryland game follow.
Dan McQuillen CAS '81
Generation Shelton-Duren-Floyd
