The Maryland basketball team opened last season third in the country en route to advancing to the program’s first Sweet 16 since 2003.
And even after losing four starters from that squad, the Terps still cracked the top 25 in the preseason USA Today Coaches Poll released Thursday. Coach Mark Turgeon’s bunch came in at No. 21.
In ESPN’s No-Longer-Way-Too-Early Top 25 released Oct. 6, Maryland sat at No. 22. CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander, meanwhile, pinned the Terps as the country’s 42-best team in his 1-351 college basketball rankings for the upcoming season. This marks the second time since 2005 that Maryland has cracked the preseason top 25 in the coaches poll.
Duke topped the polls, while Kansas, reigning national champion Villanova, Kentucky and Oregon rounded out the top five. The Terps are one of five Big Ten squads to make the cut, joining No. 9 Michigan State, No. 10 Wisconsin, No. 12 Indiana and No. 15 Purdue.
Junior point guard Melo Trimble, who averaged a team-high 14.8 points per game last season, is the lone returning starter from a year ago, but Turgeon expects his younger players, namely freshmen Kevin Huerter, Justin Jackson and Anthony Cowan, to make valuable contributions right away.
The Terps were in a similar situation during the 2014-15 campaign, and Turgeon has already compared this season’s team to that group. That year, Trimble and guards Jared Nickens and Dion Wiley — all freshmen at the time — teamed up with veterans Dez Wells and forward Jake Layman to finish 28-7 and earn a No. 4 seed in the NCAA tournament after entering the season unranked.
Maryland opens the season with an exhibition against Catawba on Nov. 5. Six days later, the Terps host American in their season opener.
