Customer Reviews

Good Enough to Be Great: The Inside Story of Maryland Basketball's National Championship Season

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I went to graduate school for a couple of years at the University of Maryland and have followed their athletic teams ever since then. Believe me, rooting for Maryland's basketball teams has often been a very frustrating experience. Although Maryland has had some excellent players (many of whom have gone on to success in the NBA) and some very good teams, they have seldom won the championship of the basketball-powehouse Atlantic Coast Conference, let alone an NCAA championship, But last year perennial Cinderella Maryland, with a team of lightly-recruited but highly-motivated overachievers, overcame all obstacles and convincingly won the NCAA Division I men's basketball championship. Josh Barr does an excellent job of telling how it happened. This is a very good read for basketball fans in general and, especially, for long-suffering Maryland fans.

This is a great book. I'm not even a big Maryland fan, and I found the whole story riveting. Josh Barr is an excellent reporter who was able to get all sorts of insider details that other reporters couldn't. He clearly knew the coaches and the players really well, but he also doesn't pull any punches. The road to a national championship is always a tough one, but it's amazing what this team had to go through along the way. The book really reinforces what an incredible player and leader Juan Dixon was. Lots of stories I had never heard before.

I've got the book and this is one of the better championship review type books I've read. This isn't an author who jumped on the bandwagon after the season and is trying to write about something he didn't follow through the season.

Barr was with the team the whole way and the season before. He knows the players, he knows the team, he knows their story.

Anyone who likes college basketball will enjoy this book. Anyone who can appreciate the saga of a school that suffered heartbreak after heartbreak, only to one day have a storybook ending will enjoy this book.

It is a very easy read and a wonderful trip down memory lane.

It's a great book, very well written and a blast to re-live all the great games of the Terps tourney run. Plus, there's a lot of behind the scenes stories I hadn't seen before.

I read Gary Williams' book and really liked it, too. This book is from a little different perspective, offers some newer stories, and is just a great read. It's still hard to believe Maryland won the national championship, and this book brings it all back.

I wasn't sure what to expect from Josh Barr, and was very pleasantly surprised. He did happen to go to every game and talked to the players constantly, so he was ideally qualified. I'm glad I got the book!

It's a great book, very well written and a blast to re-live all the great games of the Terps tourney run. Plus, there's a lot of behind the scenes stories I hadn't seen before.

I read Gary Williams' book and really liked it, too. This book is from a little different perspective, offers some newer stories, and is just a great read. It's still hard to believe Maryland won the national championship, and this book brings it all back.

I wasn't sure what to expect from Josh Barr, and was very pleasantly surprised. He did happen to go to every game and talked to the players constantly, so he was ideally qualified. I'm glad I got the book!

I bought this as a Father's Day gift for the father who has everything and is a Terp fanatic! He loved it, read it in one day and shared it with his other Gary groupies.

If you enjoy stories on overcoming the odds to be a champion, this is up your alley.
There are always inside stories that make some of these triumphs improbable. Family tragedies, tough strategic decisions and Juan Dixon's determination are the key ingrediants in this turtle's march to basketball prowess. Fear the Turtle!

A well written book by a true insider. The author knows more about this team than anyone. I highly recommend it to "true" Maryland fans.

I'm an extremely big Maryland sports fan - season tickets, final four, etc.

When I heard about this book, I had an idealistic hope that the book would be very detailed and interesting- Barr was the beat writer, the books title ('the inside story') , and because it took so long to come out (why wasnt it out before xmas?). i assumed it would have a ton that we didnt already read in the papers, saw on tv during the games, talked about on message board, etc.

but it didnt. It was just a summary. A great story but Maryland fans have heard it already.

I didnt really learn anything new from the book. it was very short (about 190 pages) , and i finished it in less than 2 hours probably.

There werent a ton of factual errors but the ones that were in were blatant and annoying. For instance, he says that Maryland lost to Arizona in the NCAAs the year after Steve Francis left, but any casual Maryland can tell you that is mistaken.

The question is - is Josh Barr just trying to make some money off Maryland's successful season? You decide.