Gary Williams expected a lot this season from John Gilchrist, his junior point guard who capped a solid year by being named the ACC Tournament’s Most Valuable Player last March.
“Now John has his own identity at the point guard position,” Williams said before the season. “He had ups and downs like a lot of sophomores do, and now he is a junior and I expect the consistency level to be stronger this year.”
But coming into tonight’s game against No. 2 Duke, Gilchrist has been inconsistent—to the point where his attitude and his play have forced his frustrated coach to deal with an identity crisis.
“We’ve talked a lot,” Williams said. “John is a scorer playing the point guard position. When you have a scorer’s mentality, you look at things differently than a point guard who doesn’t shoot as much.”
Statistically, Gilchrist’s season is not significantly different from last year. His scoring and field goal percentage are slightly down, but his assist average is up and his assist-to-turnover ratio has jumped from 1.62 to 2.25. But Gilchrist has not played well in Maryland’s big games against ranked opponents.
Against then-No. 25 Wisconsin, Gilchrist had one of the worst games of his career, shooting 2-for-14 from the field and missing the front end of two one-and-ones late in the game as Wisconsin captured a 69-64 win. He also had a disappointing showing against then-No. 3 North Carolina. Gilchrist, whose aggressive play often leads to his getting to the foul line, did not attempt a free throw and finished the UNC game with a pedestrian 11 points, three assists and three turnovers.
Things got worse when Gilchrist did not start against then-No. 4 Wake Forest because of a missed academic assignment. Gilchrist played only nine minutes—his shortest outing since his freshman year—and only scored two points. Williams said afterward that he did not play Gilchrist much because he had not practiced enough due to nagging injuries, but Gilchrist told reporters that he could have played.
Those kind of responses and Gilchrist’s attitude in general have drawn even more criticism than his up-and-down play this year. The junior did not respond well to the Wisconsin loss, as he laid face down on the floor for some time after the buzzer and later refused to speak much about the game. While sitting against Wake, Gilchrist appeared to sulk despite teammates’ and coaches’ attempts to encourage him, and at one point he did not stand and cheer with his teammates after a hustle play. Even an opposing player has criticized Gilchrist’s on-court actions, as George Washington guard J.R. Pinnock spoke to Gilchrist after Maryland’s loss to the Colonials.
“He plays with so much emotion, sometimes he can get carried away,” Pinnock said. “I just told him that he’s better than that; he’s an all-American and has to perform like that at all times.”
Williams has indicated that he and Gilchrist are now on the same page after the Wake Forest incident, and Gilchrist has played 36 minutes per game in the three contests since the Jan. 11 game.
“It’s a situation that we’re trying to get straightened out because he is a good player,” Williams said. “He was the MVP of the ACC Tournament. I haven’t forgotten that, and we want John to play really well, because when he does it makes us a better team.”
Despite any troubles on or off the court, Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski and the Blue Devils will not be expecting anything less than what they saw from Gilchrist when he scored 26 points in last year’s ACC Tournament final.
“They’re a very talented basketball team, and in Gilchrist you have one of the great guards in the country,” Krzyzewski said. “They come to play, and we have to expect that Wednesday night.”
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