TV, tipoff time set for Maryland men's basketball's Round of 32 matchup vs. Colorado State

Ahmed Ghafir
Mar 22
2 min read

Details for Maryland men’s basketball’s Round of 32 matchup between have been finalized with fourth-seed Maryland and 12-seed Colorado State set to meet on Sunday, March 23 for a 7:10 PM EST tip on TBS.

This marks the first-ever matchup between Maryland and Colorado State as the Terps opened as a 7.5-point favorite heading into Sunday.

Maryland is coming off a program-record 32-point win vs. 13th-seed Grand Canyon on Friday afternoon with five players finishing in double figures, including DeShawn Harris-Smith recording a season-high 11 points.

"Really proud of the way these guys focused in. Obviously after a really tough loss against Michigan," head coach Kevin Willard said after the win. "These guys have been resilient all year. Knew we had the advantage inside and proud of the guys that, you know, that they stuck with it and got the ball inside. We played physical against a very good basketball team."

Colorado State advanced to the Round of 32 following a 78-70 win vs. fifth-seed Memphis, pulling off the upset despite being favored heading into tipoff. After ending the regular season with ten consecutive wins, the Rams are making their 13th all-time NCAA Tournament appearance including third under head coach Niko Medved, who is 143-84 in seven seasons as Colorado State's head coach and could be on the move to take over Minnesota.

“We've got character, and we were 5-5, we knew it would be hard early, maybe harder than we thought,” head coach Niko Medved said after Friday’s win. “But they said it, over that Christmas break, that three, four-week stretch, we were out of class and I just told the guys I'm like listen – the teams that can make the biggest jump here when we can watch extra film, be in the gym more, connect more as a group are the ones who can make noise in conference season and they really took that to heart. Just went to work every day, guys really found their roles and accepted their roles. We made a commitment to defense. I thought our defense really took a big jump. I thought that's what allowed us then to really build some offensive confidence. Then these young guys, like Kyan, they just started to get confidence. So all those things came together. What's great about this team, we just keep getting better. We're playing better these last three weeks than we were the three weeks before that. That's what you want to see. So hopefully we can keep playing better because if you want to advance in this tournament we'll have to play even better on Sunday.”

While Maryland has advanced to the Round of 32 in each of their last four NCAA Tournament appearances, head coach Kevin Willard will look to guide the program to their first Sweet 16 appearance since 2016 and his first-ever appearance.

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