Maryland basketball will look for its first win under Kevin Willard in the Big Ten Tournament when they take on the winner of Minnesota-Nebraska on Wednesday night, but heading into the single-elimination tournament, the opportunity to alter their NCAA Tournament projections remains narrow.
Maryland is one of three Big Ten teams currently projected as an eight seed, drawing an average 7.97 seed according to BracketMatrix.com, joining Iowa and Illinois. In fact, only one of 103 outlets listed Maryland outside of the seven to nine-seed range with Jordan Schwartz projecting the Terps as a ten-seed. ESPN included Maryland as an eight-seed versus Arkansas with a potential matchup against Houston in their updated bracketology, and longtime beat writer and bracketologist Patrick Stevens agrees with the projections.
“I don’t know if there’s a whole lot of movement that’s gonna happen the rest of the way. I think that they probably, with a loss, could cost themselves a seed line maybe but at this point, I think they’d be an eight right now. I don’t know if they can fall down to like a ten line or something like that,” Stevens said on GCR.
As far as bolstering their resume ahead of the Big Ten Tournament, the hill may be too steep to climb for Maryland unless they go on an extended run. Maryland enters the conference tournament 26th in the updated NET while just a 3-9 record in Quad 1 games this season. And that isn’t even factoring in the issues on the road.
“You look at them, they’ve not done a lot away from home. Obviously been great in College Park, aside from that UCLA game, but away from home, the two neutral site games in November against Saint Louis and Miami are good, particularly the Miami win, but then the road victories are Louisville and Minnesota. That’s just not, that’s just not gonna cut. That doesn’t really impress. So it would be helpful I think for them to sort of shore up the away from home stuff. But even then, I don’t think that they’ve distinguished themselves. And they had a chance last week if they had handled business. They could have been in second place in the league, they could have picked up a couple more road wins and could have been talking about, hey, maybe that team could get up to like the five line.”
While fans await the postseason buzz as Willard injects life back into the program, a possible eight or nine-seed still surpasses the expectations that once tabbed Maryland to finish tenth in conference play. “I think they’re probably staring at a seven or an eight seed, which, you know, in fairness to them, at the start of November. No doubt talking about them being a seven or eight seed would be good. Unfortunately for them, at the start of March, talking about being a seven or eight seed would be kind of disappointing.”
Meanwhile, five Terps were honored with postseason awards on Tuesday including star guard Jahmir Young who was named second-team All-Big Ten.
Maryland will kick off its Big Ten Tournament run on Thursday at 9 PM.
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