When Maryland faces Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium on Wednesday night, two Hall of Fame calibre coaches will ply the sidelines.

But, reflecting an inexplicable oversight, only one of the deserving pair has gained such ultimate professional recognition.

North Carolina’s Roy Williams, inducted late last summer into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, said Maryland's Gary Williams certainly belongs too. “I think he’s one of the truly great coaches in the game,” said the UNC coach, proceeding to reel off a list of reasons. “His longevity. Winning at different programs. Winning a national championship. I think the coaches really appreciate him. I don’t know about the fans.”

We do.

Several things are certain about Wednesday’s Duke-Maryland game.

The Terrapins and Blue Devils, the ACC’s two hottest teams, will take the action right at each other, with little competitive quarter given.

Cameron Crazies, armed with pre-printed prompts, will serenade head coach Mike Krzyzewski on the occasion of his 61st birthday. Krzyzewski, inducted in 2001 into the Hall of Fame, is 4-4 at Duke in games played on his birthday. (The most recent birthday bash, at Wake Forest in 2003, resulted in a double-overtime loss.)

Meanwhile, the chant that will predictably accompany Maryland’s Williams is, “Sweat, Gary, sweat!”

Some mockery, if not derision, is to be expected when a familiar character leads an opposing team, particularly a heated rival, into any ACC arena. Williams most assuredly attracts adverse attention with a sideline demeanor that includes twirls in frustration, shouts in protest, and rants profanely and passionately directed at assistant coaches and players seated innocently on Maryland’s bench.

The approach also has enabled Williams to will plenty of squads to victory, as noted by his patronymic partner from Chapel Hill.

Last week, Maryland's Williams secured his 600th career victory in his 30th season as a head coach. In a bit of odd symmetry, the landmark win came at Boston College, his first stop as a major-college coach. Since his tenure at BC (1983-86), Williams also directed Ohio State before returning in 1989-90 to Maryland, a program wracked by arguably the stiffest NCAA probation of the modern era.

Williams is the only man in history with at least 600 wins who coached in three contemporary power conferences, in his case the Big East, Big Ten, and ACC.

Gary Williams also took Maryland to the 2001 Final Four, the farthest advance ever for his alma mater, and followed that by winning the 2002 NCAA title with a group led by Juan Dixon, Lonny Baxter, Steve Blake, Chris Wilcox, and Byron Mouton.

He directed the Terrapins to the NCAA Tournament 11 straight times from 1994 through 2004, a school record, and took them again in 2007.

His Terps won the ACC Tournament in 2004, only the third conference crown for the school, an original league member. To get there, they beat N.C. State in the semifinals by staging the biggest rally from a halftime deficit in tournament history (19 points), then defeated Duke in overtime in the finals.

Ten of Williams’ teams finished in the upper third of the conference, including last year’s, in his 19 seasons at College Park. That is the third-longest tenure since the ACC’s founding, after UNC’s Dean Smith (36 years) and Krzyzewski (28 to date).

Maryland finished tied for first place during the 1995 ACC regular season, and alone atop the standings in 2002.

Williams suffers in popular estimation in several regards. He infrequently lands high-profile players, certainly not with the frequency of other ACC powers, and is thus criticized as a recruiter. His program’s graduation rate for the period 1997 through 2000 was, for reasons both suspect and understandable (transfers, departures for the pros), at the bottom of the ACC.

Williams operates in a pro market, a non-North Carolina market to boot. That matters when it comes time for the media to vote for awards. Not until he won the national championship was Williams honored as ACC coach of the year. At one point he had won more games than anyone in league history, including three seasons with at least 25 victories, without commanding that honor.

“In the ACC area, Krzyzewski and Roy Williams now dwarf everyone,” Gary Williams noted. “Mike Krzyzewski dominates people’s perception of the league, and North Carolina does too.”

Struggles in 2005 and 2006, when the Terps settled for the NIT and twice finished with 19 wins, fostered a theory that Williams was resting on the laurels of his ’02 championship. Grumbling arose that perhaps it was time to make a coaching change. “I’ve been really surprised by some of the junk he’s had to take at Maryland,” North Carolina’s Williams said.

Then, too, the impression that Gary Williams is a wild man on the bench doubtless undercuts his public stature.

Much to the surprise of those who know him only from his courtside antics, Williams, 63 on March 4, invariably mellows once a game is done. Sarcasm and cynicism remain, but tempered by reason and dispassionate perspective.

Nowadays Williams is likely to adapt his behavior to his personnel. With a youthful squad, such as the current 16-8 unit, he can be downright contained on the bench. That was the case at Chapel Hill, where he directed the Terps to an 82-80 victory that knocked the Tar Heels from the unbeaten ranks.

The win was the seventh by a Williams team against a top-ranked opponent, most by any active coach.

Williams, who competes fiercely with Krzyzewski in a manner only contemporaries truly match, has toned down at Cameron too, often radiating calm amidst tumult for his players. The approach works – since 2000, the Terps are 4-4 at Duke, better than anyone, including the more-vaunted Heels.