Maryland vs. Iowa
When: Thursday, Feb. 10 || 7:00 p.m. ET
Where: Xfinity Center || College Park, MD
Watch: ESPN2 - Jason Benetti (play-by-play), Robbie Hummel (analyst)
Listen: 105.7 FM (Balt) / 980AM (DC) / XM388 - Johnny Holliday, Chris Knoche
It was back on January 3 when Maryland watched a four-point halftime lead evaporate against the Hawkeyes, falling on the road in an 80-75 loss at Iowa.
Fast forward five weeks and Maryland is ready for their second matchup against the Hawkeyes, this time at the Xfinity Center. Maryland will look to improve to 4-0 in rematches following losses earlier in the season, having already defeated Northwestern, Illinois and Rutgers in each of the second matchups. But if the Terps are going to pull off that fourth win to get back to .500 on the season, Maryland interim head coach Danny Manning knows it starts on the defensive end.
“They're a team that can score the basketball, score from a lot of different areas, they like to play fast,” Manning said Wednesday. “I think one area that they probably don't receive as much attention and that they deserve more attention is how they handle the basketball. They do a really good job of taking care of the basketball, they don't turn it over a lot, which is really impressive because of the speed and pace that they play at and how they try to throw different defenses at you to speed the game up. So them being able to score the basketball, shoot the basketball, and their handling of the basketball is really impressive.”
Iowa star Keegan Murray rose to the occasion that night against the Terps with 35 points on 14-of-21 shooting, one of two times that Murray has scored 35 points this season. “He’s leading the Big Ten in points so not too many people are slowing him down,” Manning added. Murray enters Thursday’s contest fourth in the country in points per game (22.3), 39th in field goal percentage (54.8) and was selected to both the Wooden Award and National Player of the Year Watch Lists, but Maryland guard Xavier Green has an idea for how the Terps can make Thursday night tougher.
“We can limit his easy buckets, like transition he was getting a lot of layups and dunks,” Green added. “We can easily stop that. He had a lot of offensive rebounds, we can easily box out, take away those points. He made a couple tough shots down the stretch but I think we can contain him, limit those easy touches, easy baskets and force him to take a shot over our hand and we can do way better. “
Maryland point guard Fatts Russell, meanwhile, needs just ten more points to reach 1,900 and four assists to reach 500 over his career. While a win would be a cherry on top, Russell knows the magnitude of reaching the milestone.
That’s five years of just work. I worked extremely hard on my game and it’s just a credit to the coaches I had in the past, teammates. It’s just a lot to think about that goes into that, it’s just not just all me. It’s a great milestone.