First-team all-conference selection Anthony Cowan Jr. isn't walking through that door. Nor is first-round NBA draft pick Jalen Smith.
Those two former Maryland Terrapins are long gone, and so too is the Big Ten championship contender the program was a season ago. The duo propelled Mark Turgeon’s team to a 24-7 overall record and tie for the conference regular season crown last year, turning it into an efficient bunch on both ends of the court that would have ended up as a top seed in the NCAA tournament if it had happened.
| Who | Where | When | TV |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maryland (10-9, 4-8) | College Park, Maryland (Xfinity Center) | 9 p.m. | FS1 |
This year’s Maryland team – a group Ohio State will face at 9 p.m. Sunday night at the Xfinity Center in College Park – isn’t in contention for trophies at all. Rather, the 10-9 Terrapins are in the position of wanting to play spoiler to the surging Buckeyes (15-4, 9-4 Big Ten) who are set to leap from No. 7 into the top-five of the Associated Press top-25 poll.
Ohio State, in Chris Holtmann’s fourth season as head coach, has shot up rankings while turning heads nationally for its play over the past month.
Since dropping a Jan. 3 game at Minnesota to drop to 8-3 and 2-3 within the Big Ten fall completely out of the top-25, the Buckeyes have only lost once. They beat Rutgers and Northwestern before pulling off a marquee win at Illinois. After losing by two points to Purdue just under three weeks ago, they got rolling on a four-game winning streak that remains ongoing, topping Wisconsin, Penn State, Michigan State, then Iowa.
Next on that list, Holtmann hopes, will be Maryland.
The Terrapins currently sit at 11th in the Big Ten with a 4-8 mark within conference play to go along with their barely-over-.500 overall record. Yet, if you dig into their schedule thus far, a few standout performances should prevent Ohio State from overlooking this team. Maryland has already gone on the road to beat both Wisconsin and Illinois, and it topped Purdue – a team the Buckeyes lost to twice – in a one-point home win six days ago. Those victories have the NCAA tournament remaining in play. Also of note: The Terrapins have played a ridiculously difficult conference portion of the schedule. All of the lesser Big Ten opponents are smushed together at the end of the season. So, the 4-8 conference record might not be the best way to judge Maryland.
Despite the subpar record, despite the offseason losses that prevent the Terrapins from truly contending for the Big Ten and despite them not even being a lock to dance in March, this in all likelihood won’t be a cakewalk for Ohio State. All the team needs to do to believe that is to talk to Greg Gard, Brad Underwood or Matt Painter.
Three Things To Watch
Guards Who Can Get Theirs
There’s no Cowan on this Maryland team. But a few guys in the backcourt are worth keeping an eye on.
In fact, in the team’s three biggest games of the season, they traded turns leading the Terrapins in scoring. Eric Ayala dropped 17 points versus the Badgers, Darryl Morsell put up 19 points at Illinois and Aaron Wiggins recorded 18 points against the Boilermakers. All three are around the same height (6-foot-5 to 6-foot-6) and same weight (200 pounds), and each of them can get buckets in their own way.
Ayala is in the midst of a breakout season after posting back-to-back campaigns of 8.5 points a contest. The junior leads Maryland with 14.4 points per game, shooting a personal-best 46.5 percent from the floor and 34.1 percent from the 3-point arc. He ranks in the 94th percentile nationally as a pick-and-roll ball-handler (1.098 points per possession) and in the 89th percentile as a spot-up shooter (1.215 points per possession).
Wiggins, a junior who excels in transition and coming off screens, manages career-highs in points (12.3), rebounds (5.4) and assists (2.7). He has hit 40 percent of his shots and 31.5 percent of 3s. A year ago, he put up 20 points in a loss to the Buckeyes. Morsell averages Morsell, a senior, is averaging a little over eight points per game for the fourth straight season. He's hitting 44 percent of his shots.
The size of Maryland’s backcourt will be a challenge Duane Washington Jr. and CJ Walker have to overcome to pull out a win. Washington dropped 16 points last game, and Walker had nine assists compared to a single turnover versus Iowa.
More Big Role Player Contributions?
Holtmann employs a deep rotation, often playing all 11 guys and cycling through his end-of-bench role players depending on the game. Turgeon utilizes a tighter lineup with only seven players who average 10 or more minutes per game, including three – Ayala, Wiggins and forward Donta Scott – who play at least 30 minutes per game.
Once again, this is a game where the Buckeyes will need their depth to help take them to a victory.
Can Zed Key continue to change games in limited minutes with his physicality and low-post acumen? Will Justin Ahrens rain 3s? Does Musa Jallow fit into the rotation to defend a slew of big guards? Will Seth Towns add some offense off the bench? Can Meechie Johnson or Gene Brown contribute in limited time?
This Ohio State team is at its best when its role players impact games in big, sometimes unexpected, ways.
Battle Of The Sophomore Forwards
One subplot to follow: E.J. Liddell vs. Donta Scott, a pair of 6-foot-7 sophomore forwards.
They each took significant jumps between the first and second years in college. A look at their baseline numbers...
- Liddell: From 6.7 points and 3.8 rebounds in 2019-20 to 15.4 points and 6.9 rebounds in 2020-21
- Scott: From 5.9 points and 3.6 rebounds in 2019-20 to 12.5 points and 6.5 rebounds in 2020-21
Sure, they aren’t exactly the same archetype of player. But they’ll end up seeing a lot of each other on Monday evening.
Liddell, who’s a cinch for an All-Big Ten nomination, has seemingly only gotten better with each passing game, scoring 20-plus points in four of the past six games and grabbing at least seven boards in each of them. He’s getting to the free-throw line nearly six times a game and draws fouls within Big Ten games at the second-highest rate in the conference.
Scott has proven much more of a threat from outside, hitting 45.2 percent of his nearly four 3-pointers per game. Nobody else in Maryland’s rotation eclipses the 40-percent threshold. He scored a season-high 20 points against Rutgers and scored 19 versus Michigan.
Prediction: Ohio State 68, Maryland 67
