Terps Win A Share Of The Big Ten Regular Season Title; Big Ten Tournament Awaits

What a day for Maryland basketball.

With a 83-70 win over Michigan on Sunday, the Terps won their first-ever Big Ten championship and first conference title in a decade — won the ACC title in 2009-10.

Wins by Wisconsin and Michigan State over the weekend makes it a three-way tie for the regular season Big Ten championship, but the Terps still got to cut down the nets at Xfinity Center on Sunday and will eventually hang a banner in the rafters.

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It was senior day for Terps’ point guard Anthony Cowan Jr. — along with walk-ons Travis Valmon and Will Clark — and the Wooden Award finalist did not disappoint.

Cowan finished with a game-high 20 points and eight assists against the Wolverines. He started the game hot offensively and fought through double-teams in the second half to get to the free throw line six times — all in the final minute to help ice the game for the Terps.

The Bowie, Maryland, native hit all six of his attempts from the charity stripe and in the process became Maryland’s all-time leader in career free throws made.

Cowan had a hard-fought battle with Michigan senior point guard Zavier Simpson throughout the game. And while Simpson also stuffed the stat sheet with 13 points, seven rebounds, and six assists, he had his hands full defensively with Cowan and finished the game on the bench after fouling out late in the second half.

As a team, the Terps shot a season-high 56 percent from the field and were 8-for-20 from beyond the arc. They also were able to convert most of Michigan’s mistakes into buckets by winning the fast-break points margin 20-12.

Besides Cowan, Maryland also received a heavy lift in scoring from sophomores Eric Ayala, Jalen “Stix” Smith, and Aaron Wiggins.

Smith, who finished the first half with a long-distance buzzer-beater three-pointer, finished with 18 points and 11 rebounds for his 21st double-double of the season. Smith also dominated on the defensive end, blocking four shots.

The 6-foot-10 future pro played a large role in Maryland’s strong rebounding effort on Sunday. The Terps have said several times recently that they need to get back to playing better defense and rebounding in order to right the ship after losing three out of four games. They did just that against Michigan, finishing with a plus-seven rebound margin and holding the Wolverines’ leading scorer, Isaiah Livers, to just six points on 2-for-8 shooting.

Ayala and Wiggins were locked in from three. The two sophomores combined to shoot 6-for-8 from downtown and also grabbed 10 rebounds between them. Ayala finished with a season-high 19 points and Wiggins netted 15.

Freshman forward Franz Wagner and sophomore guard David DeJulius did most of the damage offensively for the Wolverines. Wagner had 15 points while DeJulius scored a career-high 20.

Overall, Maryland came ready to play in a game that had huge implications. It was a sold out crowd in College Park and they got what they paid to see.

Since Maryland, Michigan State, and Wisconsin all finished with a 14-6 conference record, they all claim a share of the Big Ten championship this season. In terms of seeding for the conference tournament, which runs from March 11 to March 15, the Badgers receive the No. 1 seed because they split their two games with the Spartans and won their lone matchup this season with the Terps.

Michigan State received the No. 2 seed in the conference tournament because the Spartans have the same record (2-0) as Maryland against No. 4 seed Illinois but have a better winning percentage (100 percent, 1-0) against No. 5 seed Iowa than the Terps’ percentage (50 percent, 1-1).

With the No. 3 seed draw, Maryland is slated to play its first Big Ten Tournament game March 13 at 9 p.m. EST. No. 11 seed Indiana will play No. 14 seed Nebraska March 11, and the winner of that game will play No. 6 seed Penn State March 12. The winner of Penn State’s game on Thursday will play the Terps on Friday.

After suspending two of its players and losing 16 straight games to end the regular season including a 107-75 loss to Minnesota on Sunday, the Cornhuskers’ chance of advancing seems nearly impossible.

That sets up an interesting Thursday evening game between the Hoosiers and Nittany Lions. Indiana has been up and down all season long, but the Hoosiers look like they can compete with anybody at times. Maryland swept Indiana this season with a 75-59 win in College Park and a 77-76 win at Assembly Hall in Bloomington.

Penn State beat the Terps in the lone meeting between these two teams this year. It was a relatively decisive 76-69 win for the Nittany Lions at home, but it was a game that took place in early December and it was Maryland’s first true road game of the season.

While Maryland would likely feel comfortable playing a team it has already beaten twice like Indiana, there’s no doubt that the Terps would like another crack at Penn State, especially with more at stake.

The Nittany Lions have had an impressive year, especially by their standards, but have really struggled as of late. Penn State lost five of its last six games to finish the regular season and has looked particularly inept in its last two outings.

On March 3rd, the Nittany Lions led Michigan State 46-31 at halftime in State College only to be outscored 48-25 in the second half and be handed an eight-point defeat. That play carried over into their next game, which resulted in an 11-point loss to Northwestern — a team that finished 13th in the conference standings and hadn’t beaten a ranked team by that much since 2015.

Maryland didn’t have the strongest finish to its regular season either, but the big win over Michigan on Sunday seems to have helped the Terps get their groove back. As league champions coming off of perhaps their best performance of the season, the Terps will certainly be feeling like they can accomplish anything in the postseason when they’re locked in like they were against the Wolverines.