Getting to know Maryland’s Round of 64 NCAA Tournament opponent

Despite sounding like a made-up school that Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill would go to in the sequel to 22 Jump Street, South Dakota State is in fact a real college, and it will in fact be playing Maryland on Friday in the NCAA Tournament.

Luckily, there are a few days to go before the matchup, so take some time to familiarize yourself with the Terrapins’ opening round opponent with these seven random facts.

As far as college basketball goes, a Terrapin is a pretty strange mascot. A Terrapin feels like a Bulldog or a Falcon, though, when compared to South Dakota State’s Jackrabbits. Are we absolutely sure this school exists?

The team’s official Twitter account (@GoJacksMBB) has, at the time this post was published, 4,587 followers. Melo Trimble, meanwhile, has just over 20,000 followers. That means Melo Trimble has roughly four times the amount of followers on his own compared to SDSU. If you want to compare team account to team account, you’ll see Maryland comfortably ahead of the Jackrabbits at 44,000-plus.

Adam Vinatieri, an NFL kicker who has made a handful of the sport’s most famous field goals, including a couple of Super Bowl game-winners, is an SDSU alum. That’s really cool. So is Nate Wolters, who was taken in the second round of the 2013 NBA Draft and is currently suiting up in Turkey. That’s somewhat cool.

The Jackrabbits’ (will that name ever get old? Nope) head coach, Scott Nagy, has been at the helm for 21 seasons. He has 410 wins under his belt, too. For comparison’s sake, Gary Williams notched 461 wins while working in College Park, and he did that in 22 years on the job. That means Nagy knows a thing or two about coaching basketball. No word on whether he sweats like Gary did, though.

SDSU is also sponsored by Under Armour, just like Maryland is. Guess you could call this showdown a “Battle for the Brand.” That sounds a lot better than Round of 64 game in the South region.

The Jackrabbits have made the NCAA Tournament twice before — 2012 and 2013. They lost to Baylor by eight points and to Michigan by 15. That’s encouraging for Terps fans: SDSU is 0-1 in March Madness against opponents that start with the letter ‘M.’

Remember when Maryland won the Riviera Division of the Cancun Challenge back in November? Well, interestingly enough, SDSU won the Mayan Division. So, for those of you who were just dying to see the two Cancun Challenge winners square off in a winner-take-all contest, Friday is your lucky day. Forget moving on to the next round of the Big Dance, let’s see which Cancun Challenge participant is the top dog (or turtle, or jackrabbit).