Maryland men’s basketball received a No. 4 seed in the NCAA tournament and will play No. 13-seed Grand Canyon in Seattle in the first round on Friday.

The Antelopes won the Western Athletic Conference tournament to earn their third-straight NCAA tournament appearance. They beat No. 5 seed St. Mary’s last year before falling in the second round.

Grand Canyon plays an uptempo offense but only has the No. 149 offensive efficiency, per KenPom, and the No. 67 defense.

No. 5 seed Memphis won the American Athletic Conference regular season and tournament titles and No. 12 seed Colorado State rides a 10-game winning streak, including the Mountain West tournament.

[Maryland men’s basketball can’t stop losing on buzzer-beaters]

If the Terps win their first two games, they could play No. 1 Florida, who won the SEC tournament, which was one of the best conferences in recent history. Maryland’s Sweet 16 contest would be in San Francisco as part of the West regional. Maryland hasn’t made it that far since 2016.

The Terps (25-8, 14-6 Big Ten) earned their highest seed since 2015. It’s their best seeding since winning the national championship in 2002.

Coach Kevin Willard has never made it past the round of 32 as a head coach. He is 2-6 in the tournament, but COVID-19 led to March Madness’ cancellation in 2020, which was the coach’s best team at Seton Hall.

Despite the team’s past struggles, there are plenty of reasons why this could be the Maryland team to make a run.

The group enters the tournament as winners of 14 of its last 18 contests — with all four losses coming by one basket in the final 10 seconds of the game. Maryland also boasts a top-30 offense and a top-10 defense, per KenPom and BartTorvik, while EvanMiya ranks it No. 32 offensively.

Sunday marked quite the turnaround for the Terps and Willard, who finished with a losing record a year ago and desperately needed a bounce back year.