How Flip Saunders Almost Became a Terp

(Image from Minnesota media guide.) Why was a Maryland basketball program that already had John Lucas in the fold recruiting a slightly undersized point guard from a small school in Ohio during the early '70s? I'll let Lefty Driesell explain. "He was a heckuva player," the Terps legend said of Flip Saunders, now the Wizards' head coach and then a would-be Maryland recruit. "If I recruited him, he was pretty good. I didn't go after any dogs. I mean, he was good. We recruited him hard." Saunders told me that he actually attended the Terps basketball camp in the summer before his senior year, earning MVP honors, which kick-started his interest in the Terps. It didn't hurt that the program was stocked with big names, which helped move Maryland near the top of Saunders's list. "I pretty much had it down between Maryland and Minnesota," he said. "I mean,