When the Terrapins men’s basketball team arrived in Columbus, Ohio, in March last season, it was unchartered territory for nearly every player. Former Terps forwards Dez Wells and Evan Smotrycz had the only NCAA Tournament experience on the team.
While only one member of this year’s team has advanced past the first weekend, nearly the entire squad has participated in March Madness before.
So as the No. 5-seed Terps prepare to battle No-12 seed South Dakota State on Friday in Spokane, Washington, they are leaning on last year’s experience.
“We are much more comfortable with what lies ahead than we were last year at this time,” coach Mark Turgeon said.
A season ago, the fifth-year coach led the Terps to the NCAA Tournament for the first time under his watch. As a No. 4 seed, they defeated Valparaiso in their first game before falling to then-No. 5-seed West Virginia in the Round of 32.
Guard Melo Trimble, who suffered a concussion in that loss to the Mountaineers, said that game made the team realize how important it is not to overlook any foe.
“We could see Kentucky for our next game in the Sweet 16 and that’s all we were focused on,” Trimble said. “We didn’t really give any respect to West Virginia and they came out and beat us.”
While the Terps were ranked in the top 10 and revered as national title contenders for most of this season, their stock has plummeted as they’ve lost five of their past eight games. But the team isn’t concerned with their seed in the tournament.
About two weeks ago, Trimble said the Terps were back to being underdogs and Tuesday he added they have a “chip on their shoulder” entering the NCAA Tournament.
And as they seek the program’s second national title, the Terps can lean on the experience of graduate transfer Rasheed Sulaimon, who advanced to the Elite Eight as a freshman at Duke in 2013.
“He can just give us his knowledge of being in the NCAA Tournament on how you have to focus on one game at a time,” forward Robert Carter Jr. said. “How it’s two-game tournaments pretty much. You win two games, you advance. You don’t look over anybody.”
Turgeon said he hasn’t needed to reach out to Sulaimon to ask him to talk with the team. The veteran leader is always communicating with his teammates, Turgeon said.
He placed more of an emphasis on Sulaimon leading by example.
“What I need Rasheed to do is practice hard and practice well, which he’s done,” Turgeon said. “That rubs off on everyone else. He’s doing his part.”
One player who’s expected to be a big factor in the tournament but doesn’t have any past experience is freshman center Diamond Stone, who is second on the team with 12.9 points per game.
But even though Stone was still in high school last year when the Terps made their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2010, senior forward Jake Layman isn’t concerned about the rookie.
“Diamond is the kind of guy that likes to play in big games,” Layman said. “So I think moving forward, he’s going to be locked in and ready to play.”
The Terps have won 11 straight opening-round games in the tournament, but the problem has been making deep runs after those initial victories. In the preseason, many expected this to be the year the Terps did so.
Carter still thinks it is.
“Everybody wanted us to win everything, but this is what we prepared for the whole year,” Carter said. “This was our goal from the beginning of the season. We want to be at our best by this time, and we feel like it’s time for us to make a run.”
