It almost feels like a team needs a blessing from the basketball gods to beat Maryland.
Kevin Willard’s 13th-ranked Terrapins have lost just three games in the last two months. The first came on a buzzer-beating floater from Northwestern’s Nick Martinelli in overtime. The next came thanks to a banked in triple from Ohio State’s Bruce Thornton with fewer than eight seconds remaining to evaporate a Maryland lead that had reached 17.
Does the third even need a mention? Tre Holloman’s miracle heave for Michigan State will easily go down as one of the most iconic shots of the 2024-25 campaign.
No. 17 Michigan didn’t get that good fortune on Wednesday, and Maryland rattled off its 12th win in its last 15 games with an impressive 71-65 road victory.
In the process, Maryland, now 23-7, helped the same team that ripped its heart out last week. Michigan State earned at least a share of the Big Ten regular season championship thanks to Michigan’s loss. MSU coach Tom Izzo is the well-deserved talk of the town in Big Ten country, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that these Terps might be the Big Ten’s best bet to make that elusive run to play on the first Monday in April. It has a pro. It has the defense. And hoo boy, does it have the guards.
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Jerry Palm
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Maryland’s transfer portal class delivers once again
Maryland showed a little more of its moxie in its win over a desperate Wolverines squad that was itching for a bounce back. Ja’Kobi Gillespie didn’t score in the first half. No big deal. The Belmont transfer calmly and cooly delivered eight huge points in the second half. Rodney Rice put his one-game slump in the dumpster with four 3-pointers and a team-high 19 points. Derik Queen and Julian Reese couldn’t fully shut down Michigan’s tandem of Danny Wolf and Vladislav Goldin, but they did enough to bother Dusty May’s big fellas. Michigan shot just 11 for 22 on layups, and Reese delivered one of the biggest plays of the game with a big-boy rip-away from Goldin, who has spent most of his lone year in Ann Arbor dunking on anybody who dares to step in his path.
Queen has earned the right to be the life of the party and the front-page star for this club. But while the five-star big man is well on his way to earning Big Ten Freshman of the Year after posting another double-double (17 points, 12 rebounds), Maryland’s transfer portal haul can go toe-to-toe with any class in the country.
How about Selton Miguel? The South Florida product splashed three more 3-pointers and finished with 17. The veteran has been one of the Big Ten’s best 3-and-D role players. Even on an off-shooting night for Gillespie, the dynamic do-it-all guard contributed seven rebounds and five assists while thoroughly outplaying his counterpart on the other end of the aisle.
And what else is there to say about Rice? The Virginia Tech transfer was almost a forgotten man after an injury-riddled freshman season with the Hokies. He’s as vital to the Terps’ resurgence as anybody.
In a transfer portal era when expectations and reality can be miles apart, Maryland’s batch of newcomers have all been terrific additions. Gillespie is pound for pound as good of a point guard addition that you could find on the transfer market. Rice and Miguel have been stone-cold killers. Queen is as productive as any freshman in college basketball outside of that Cooper Flagg dude.
Those road woes? Yeah, that’s last month’s news. Those shooting woes? The old days.
Maryland has Final Four potential
This iteration of Maryland is the program’s fourth-best offense in the Internet era, behind a team that won the national title in 2002, made the Final Four in 2001 and earned a No. 4 seed in 2010. That’s pretty darn good company. This defense is up to ninth nationally and scoring at the rim against these Terps remains a chore. Just ask Michigan.
Maybe this team doesn’t have enough depth to win six straight. Maybe the two-big lineup of Queen and Reese could get exposed at times. Maybe the hot shooting from Gillespie, Rice and Miguel has been too good to be true. It’s March. The good teams don’t always win in the most random event in sports.
But Maryland has lost just seven games this year, and all of them have been by two possessions or fewer. That’s not nothing.
Selection Sunday is 11 days away. Whoever draws the Terps better hope the basketball gods are on their side because Ohio State, Northwestern and Michigan State sure needed some good juju to beat ’em.