The fans on one of Maryland's message boards (or at least a few of them, anyway), have a habit of using the phrase "HOF Gary" in some of their posts.

Many of them defend Maryland's longtime basketball coach. A few use the term sarcastically. But Gary's 600th victory last week brought up the argument on a larger scale about Hall of Fame credentials.

One of the worst arguments for Hall of Fame inclusion is the "if-then" approach, one that ensures that people feel they can vouch for the candidate of their choice so long as he or she is a teensy bit better than the worst comparable person in a particular Hall. Hence, the Fred Lindstroms and Jesse Haineses of the world are the bane of many thoughtful baseball fans, simply because they allow zany arguments to take root in support of other equally mediocre players.

The point of that aside was that what I'm about to toss out isn't an if-then. Frankly, the guy I'm comparing Gary to is far better than a baseline qualifier, even if it seems like he made it into the Hall really, really quickly (less than 20 seasons seems like a short time for anyone, especially someone without a fistful of title rings).

He is the guy, who upon entering the ACC, prompted this famous quip from Gary: "Well, I'm the Williams in the league with a national championship."

That's right, it's time to line up Gary and Ole Roy, just for the fun of it.

Seasons: Roy 20, Gary 30

Record: Roy 544-133, Gary 601-336

Winning Pct.: Roy .804, Gary .641

National titles: Roy 1, Gary 1

Final Fours: Roy 5, Gary 2

Sweet 16s: Roy 11, Gary 9

NCAAs: Roy 18, Gary 15

Conference regular season titles: Roy 11, Gary 4

Conference tournament titles: Roy 5, Gary 1

Raw numbers say the edge is in Roy Williams' corner. Some of the deficits don't look so bad if you take into account Gary's four years at a small school (American) and another four spent sifting through the wreckage of the post-Bob Wade years at Maryland. And as my friend Marc Carig from the Washington Post might say, Roy benefited from the opportunity "to pick low-lying fruit." In other words, it isn't as great a challenge to win 20 games every year at programs perceived to be in the top five nationally like Kansas and North Carolina as some other places (though Matt Doherty might just disagree).

That closes the gap some, enough in my mind to make them fairly comparable contemporaries even if Roy still has a shinier resume (few coaching numbers are as difficult to ignore as Roy's winning percentage). But does the real line of Hall of Fame demarcation fall between the Williamses' current accomplishments? Probably not.

There's any number of honored coaches this little game can be played with, some more accomplished than either Williams and some less so. It leads me to think "HOF Gary" will probably lose any of its current sarcasm (and be replaced some other kind, no doubt) in the next few years.

--- Patrick Stevens