For the first 20 minutes on Sunday, Maryland men’s basketball didn’t look like it has over the last six weeks — one of the hottest teams in college basketball.
The last 20 minutes couldn’t be any more different.
Sophomore guard Rodney Rice went on a personal 8-0 run out of the gates, sparking one of the Terps’ most dominant halves of the season — they outscored Iowa 54-24. Maryland scored 21 of the first 25 second-half points and never looked back, downing Iowa, 101-75, at Xfinity Center on Sunday.
“I really just told them at halftime, we’re only down four, we should be down 20,” Willard said. “I said, ‘Let’s get in our press, get in the zone, try to mix them up a little bit.’ I actually felt really good about the fact that we were only down four.”
Sunday marked the Terps’ ninth win in their last 11 contests. It was Maryland’s (20-6, 10-5 Big Ten) highest-ever score in a Big Ten game, as it shot 58 percent from the floor and 12-for-26 from three. All five starters scored at least 16 points, led by Ja’Kobi Gillespie with 26.
The biggest difference between the polar opposite halves, though, was defense. Iowa’s field goal percentage was less than half of what it was in the first, and the Hawkeyes (14-11, 5-9) missed all 13 threes after making eight in the opening period.
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“We knew they were going to score [on] us in the first half. If you haven’t played against Fran [McCaffery’s] teams, he’s one of the best offensive coaches in the country,” Willard said. “We played zone in the second half, just trying [to get them out of] such a good rhythm in the first half.”
Maryland got off to as good of an offensive start as it could’ve hoped for, even considering it was facing the worst-ranked defense in the Big Ten, according to KenPom.
The Terps made their first seven shots, with four coming from beyond the arc. Selton Miguel was responsible for three of them, and the graduate student finished with his third-consecutive 17-point outing.
Miguel went cold after, but his teammates’ attempts continued falling. The problem for the Terps was that the Hawkeyes’ were, too. Maryland then hit a rut midway through the half, going more than three minutes without a field goal, and Iowa remained steady.
The Hawkeyes led for the final eight minutes of the first half and entered the break with a 51-47 lead.
Maryland shot 17-for-30 from the field and 8-for-13 from beyond the arc, but was plagued by turnovers. Iowa scored 23 points off 11 first-half giveaways. The Terps only averaged 10.4 turnovers per game entering Sunday.
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That problem — as well as most others from the first half — didn’t persist after the break. Maryland only had four turnovers in the second, which led to four Iowa points.
“In my opinion, the first half we took a few plays off that we’d like to have back. … [we were] not being aware of what’s going on,” Rice said. “In the second half, we did a better job.”
Right after the New Year, early in Big Ten play, the Terps looked to be in a precarious position: 1-3 in the conference and fresh off back-to-back losses to Washington and Oregon.
Since then, everything’s come together.
Maryland’s half a game out of a double-bye in the Big Ten tournament — and that feels in reach given that KenPom has the Terps as favorites in four of their final five regular-season outings, three of which are at home.
Maryland has already crossed the 20-win mark after doing so just one time in the previous four years. It’s now in a position to not just make the NCAA tournament, but earn its highest seed in nearly a decade.
The metrics say this is the best Maryland team since the COVID-shortened 2020 season. On Sunday, the Terps certainly looked like it.
