It's official: Greivis Vasquez won the ACC Player of the Year award going away earlier today, making him the fifth Maryland player to ever receive the award (Juan Dixon, Joe Smith, Len Bias, Albert King) and the third for Gary Williams' 21 years at the program.
It's quite an achievement, and basically guarantees that a banner will be hanging in the rafters (not that it was in any doubt at this point). He's clearly been one of the nation's best players this year, and should go down as an all-time Maryland great.
Here's my question: on the list of players Gary Williams has coached, where does Vasquez rank?
Juan Dixon is #1 and will doubtfully ever be topped. But how high could Greivis go after that? Does he challenge Joe Smith, who won a national player of the year award? Probably not.
How about Walt Williams? The Wizard was an amazing player, and he was put - and succeeded in - a difficult situation. No one can compare to him for what he did for Maryland. But he never won ACC Player of the Year, and Greivis is a major reason that Gary Williams still has his job. Is that enough for Vaz to leapfrog him?
Or what about Keith Booth? Booth was a big part of the mid-90s revival and carried a team on his back. You could argue that Vasquez did the same, but he has the hardware to go with it. Steve Blake, however, has even more hardware. Does Vasquez top him?
To the point: there's a lot of career left to go, considering he could win the ACC tournament or make a deep NCAA run, but for the moment, let's assume that Maryland makes it to the ACC championship game, loses, and goes on to the Sweet 16 in the NCAAs. Vasquez is neither particularly better nor worse than you would expect. Where does he rank?
Personally, I put him behind Williams, at #4. It'll be interesting to see what some of you, particularly the older (thus, wiser) ones, have to say about it.