Battle-tested Terps ready to make a Big Ten Tournament run

Maryland has played the 19th toughest schedule in the country this season according to KenPom, and much of that has had to do with playing in one of the best conferences in college basketball.

Finishing 13-7 and fifth in the Big Ten, Mark Turgeon’s team has seen its fair share of close games against formidable opponents, and with the Terps set to begin postseason play March 14 as they await the winner of Rutgers and Nebraska, Maryland enters its conference tournament with supreme confidence.

“The young guys have handled it all year,” Turgeon told reporters March 13. “Sometimes you have that rookie mentality where you just don’t know any better and you just go out and play. And I think our guys have done that all year. They’ve all continued to get better as the season has gone on, and I know they’re excited for the opportunity. We’ve played all of the best teams. We’ve played great teams with our schedule. So competition wise they’re ready for that. It’s a stage, but we’ve played on a lot of big stages this year, so I expect our young guys to play well.

“We’ve seen all the teams. We should be able to prepare very quickly because of that. As young as we are, we’re still experienced this time of year, so we’re looking forward to it. Let’s get going. Let’s get to Chicago and get games going.”

Terps sophomore center, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award finalist, First-Team All-Big Ten selection, and First-Team All-Big Ten Defensive Team honoree, Bruno Fernando, echoed his coach’s sentiment Wednesday and added that not only has playing a Big Ten schedule helped Maryland prepare this season, but also competing against each other day in and day out at practice has the Terps feeling like they can match up with anyone in the postseason even with five freshmen in the rotation.

“Just seeing [the freshmen] play in practice against players like us--Serrel [Smith] going against Anthony [Cowan] all of the time, and Aaron [Wiggins] going against Darryl [Morsell], or Jalen [Smith] going against me or Josh [Tomaic] or Ivan [Bender],” Fernando said. “And obviously almost everybody in the Big Ten is that way, so I don’t think they’ll see anything a lot different than they see in practice. So that really gives us confidence that they’re going to be able to step up and perform. I think we’ve played on a lot of big stages this year and they’ve seen a lot of huge games that they’ve never seen before because they were in high school and it was a lot different, and I think they’ve just become accustomed to that.”

Maryland freshman guard Eric Ayala agrees, and believes he and his fellow freshman classmates are ready for the challenge of postseason tournaments.

“We don’t even acknowledge each other as freshman anymore,” Ayala said. “The older guys don’t acknowledge us as freshmen. They joke around here and there, but when we go out there on the court we’re looked at to do our job.”

The Terps won’t have a set scouting report to go over until late Wednesday night when Rutgers and Nebraska conclude their opening round game, but Turgeon and his squad aren’t concerned with exactly who they’re going to play on Thursday, rather they are taking this week in practice to improve themselves internally.

“Nebraska is completely different, Rutgers is completely different, we’re completely different,” Turgeon said. “Rutgers has probably improved a lot since that game and so have we. So we’ll see what happens. The good thing about not knowing who you’re playing is you get to work on yourself. So all week we’ve just been working on Maryland, which I think is going to be really good for us.”

Maryland’s preparation ahead of the Big Ten Tournament has been about the details of the game as well as intangibles such as hustle and grit.

“We’re talented enough to just go out there and play basketball, but it’s like the small things like boxing out, diving on the floor for balls, getting back on defense, the little stuff like that,” Ayala said. “We’ve been putting a major focus on the details.”

As they get ready for back-to-back postseason tournaments, the Terps are also focusing on getting their bodies right. Strength and conditioning coach Kyle Tarp is making sure Maryland’s players are getting the right nutrition ahead of the Big Ten Tournament as well as balancing workouts with rest.

“I feel great,” Ayala said. “Our strength coach Kyle [Tarp] has been making sure we’re getting a lot of carbs so we can have energy and fuel ourselves and stuff like that. So just eating that extra meal to have that energy to play three games or however many we might play. So we’re just staying physically ready.”

Terps sophomore guard Darryl Morsell added:

“That’s all Kyle [Tarp]. All the recovery, ice baths. The main thing that I feel is sleep. Sleep is very important. That’s like your natural way of letting your body recover, so just getting a lot of sleep, managing time, and just getting ice baths and stuff like that to heal little wounds and aches and stuff like that.”

Turgeon and his players all acknowledged that this year’s Big Ten Tournament is as wide open as it has ever been in terms of who could walk away with the postseason title, and they’re gearing up for each team’s best shot no matter who they play.

“Everybody has a shot,” Fernando said. “The postseason is different. Every team is different than they were during the season. A lot of teams got a lot better and everybody is looking forward to it because everybody has a chance to win a championship now. The records don’t really matter anymore right now. Everybody is 0-0, so everybody is trying to win a championship and everybody is going to try and come in and bring their A-game. So we have to make sure we come in and to the best of our ability make sure that happens for us.”

Not only will the Terps rely on the experience they’ve gained as a team this season to get them ready for whatever the postseason throws at them, they’re also drawing from the experience their non-freshmen have and looking to them to provide leadership down the stretch.

As they prepare for the second Big Ten Tournament of their college careers, Fernando and Morsell are both striving for team success after losing to Wisconsin in their first game of the conference tournament last season. But they also each have their own individual motivations that they’ll use to help them propel their team to victory.

“I just remember that feeling in the locker room after the game (last year), just knowing that the season was over, and I don’t want to feel that this year,” Morsell said.

Fernando’s response was a bit simpler.

“Win,” Fernando said. “I want to get a ring.”