Maryland basketball missed out on the 2021-22 tournament, but Kevin Willard has his team on the cusp of a projected NCAA birth with conference play almost halfway over.
ESPN has Maryland as an 11-seed in the West region with a projected rematch against an ACC foe in Miami (FL). The two teams met in the Hall of Fame Tip-Off Tournament earlier this season when the Terps ran away with an 88-70 win, making head coach Kevin Willard the first coach in program history to begin his career 5-0. Miami has since won ten of its 13 games since then and has climbed to 20th in the latest AP poll.
The Field of 68, however, also has Maryland in the West as an 11-seed facing Duke. The postseason game would be a welcomed sight for Maryland fans as it’d mark the first matchup between the former ACC rivals since February 15, 2014. Duke won the last matchup by two points in a game that gave the Blue Devils an extra possession thanks to the possession arrow not switching. Still, Maryland won the prior two matchups as Maryland beat Duke in two of three matchups during the 2012-13 season. Under first-year head coach Jon Scheyer, Duke fell to 14-6 on Monday night after Virginia Tech ended their seven-game slide with a 78-75 win in Blacksburg.
Jerry Palm of CBS Sports, however, has Maryland among the last four out in his updated bracketology. Maryland will look to change that on Wednesday when they host Wisconsin for the second matchup of the season. The Badgers handed the Terps their first loss of the season last month in the second of a brutal four-game stretch. Maryland has won four of their last ten games since then, but Willard has repeatedly credited the tough stretch for the reason why he envisions his team will be prepared for the rest of Big Ten play. “The good thing is that this is going to be what the Big Ten play is like, so they’re actually getting a really good taste of what league play is gonna be like, five brutal games in a row,” he said.
Maryland is two days removed from a three-point loss at Purdue, now the nation’s top-ranked team, in a game that saw the Terps down by as many as 16 points.
“I thought we really did a good job of getting [Purdue] to take a lot of shots that they aren’t used to taking,” Willard said. “I thought we did a good job of not letting them be so fluid. I thought we found a way to fight back and that’s what I’m seeing from this basketball team, that they are getting back to what we were early in the season with our fight and with our intensity level on the defensive end,” he added.
Tipoff is set for 7 PM on Wednesday.
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