Maryland Men’s basketball began its season with an exhibition game on Friday and will begin playing games that count on Tuesday against Quinnipiac. To preview the season, here are three things I’d like to see the Terps accomplish to make this season better than last year.
Win the ACC-Big Ten Challenge for the second time since joining the Big Ten
Since swapping conferences, Maryland has had a dreadful record in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, going 1-6. Some of those losses have been understandable, like their 2018 defeat to a Virginia team that became national champions. However, others have been pretty inexplicable. Their 2016 home loss to Pitt was annoying when it happened and only got much worse once the Panthers finished the year with a 4-14 record in ACC play. It also feels like it might not be a coincidence that when Maryland finally won the ACC-Big Ten Challenge in their new conference, it came in a year they won the Big Ten regular season title.
Maryland will look to move to 2-6 against its old conference this year in a meeting with Virginia Tech at home. While Virginia Tech doesn’t exactly provide the rich history of someone like North Carolina or Virginia, they’ll still be a solid opponent and that matchup has already been previewed by our own Pat Donohue.
This game will have added significance compared to prior years of the ACC-Big Ten Challenge just because it’ll be the first power conference opponent to play in front of fans in College Park since Michigan on March 8, 2020. While I don’t think this will be one of the best atmospheres ever for Xfinity Center, it will certainly be one with a unique energy given how long it’s been since Maryland played a power conference opponent in a packed house.
An out-of-conference game in December won’t make-or-break the rest of Maryland’s year, but it would be an especially frustrating loss given Maryland’s prior history in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge since switching conferences. Throw in the fact that this’ll be Maryland’s best crowd since March 2020 and it would be quite a disappointing defeat.
Don’t get blown out frequently
While Maryland was still able to make it to the NCAA tournament and advance to the round of 32, last year’s squad felt different from the other Mark Turgeon tournament teams just based on how often they were clearly being outplayed in their losses. They lost by double-digit points seven times, including their exit from the NCAA tournament against Alabama.
The January loss to Iowa feels especially notable here, as it was only the second time Maryland lost by 20+ points in College Park since joining the Big Ten. There’s the obvious caveat that there were no fans in the stands for that game, but I don’t even think the most rabid student section in school history was going to stop Luka Garza from scoring 24 points while making almost 65 percent of his field goals in a dominant performance.
I’m not demanding Maryland never loses by at least ten points because that’s not realistic, but it’d be much more encouraging if they kept it close more often this year. Additionally, Maryland should never find itself in a situation where it loses by 20 points at home, regardless of if the crowd consists of humans or cardboard cutouts.
Maryland was regularly outclassed by better teams last year and it absolutely shouldn’t happen again this year.
Avoid bad losses
Blowout losses are frustrating, but it feels like you can shrug them off if you’re the weaker team. Sometimes it’s just as simple as one team has Luka Garza and the other team doesn’t.
However, losing to weaker and less talented teams can linger for much longer and become a blemish on a team’s NCAA tournament resume. Out of Maryland’s 14 losses last year, I’d consider three of them to be bad losses: getting swept by Penn State and losing at Northwestern. Both Northwestern and Penn State failed to make the NCAA tournament and they had a combined Big Ten record of 13-25, but Maryland went 0-3 against the duo.
Even with their defeats to more talented teams like Iowa or Michigan, a 3-0 performance against the Wildcats and Nittany Lions would’ve given the Terps a 12-8 record in Big Ten play that would’ve given them something higher than the #10 seed they received on Selection Sunday.
While a loss to a weaker Big Ten team would be frustrating, a home defeat to a mid-major would be especially concerning. This hasn’t been a recent issue for Maryland, having last lost to a mid-major in College Park in 2013 against Boston University. However, all it takes is one off night against someone like Brown University and the Terps will suddenly have a blemish on their tournament resume that becomes much more concerning than a defeat in Evanston.
Upsets are what make college sports fun, but I’d also really like to see Maryland avoid being on the losing end of one this year to a team like Minnesota or Nebraska, or especially a mid-major like Hofstra.
BSL Analyst
Rose Katz is a recent graduate of the University of Maryland’s journalism school, where she worked for The Diamondback as the online managing editor and a sports blogger. As a student, she spent almost all of her time on campus in The Diamondback’s newsroom or at Xfinity Center, Ludwig Field and Maryland Stadium. Rose gained intern experience with the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN).