COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Riding a three-game winning streak, No. 15 Maryland (16-4, 6-3 Big Ten) returns home to Xfinity Center Jan. 29 for a rematch against No. 18 Iowa (15-5, 6-3), a team that defeated the Terps by 16 earlier in the month and hasn’t lost since.
The Terps are 11-0 at home this season, winning by an average margin of 16.8 points. They have also won three out of four games since their double-digit loss to the Hawkeyes on Jan. 10. But head coach Mark Turgeon isn’t letting his team take its winning streak at home for granted and is constantly reminding the Terps that they are a work in progress.
“We try to stay even keel and just keep trying to get better,” Turgeon said. “We know we have deficiencies and things that we have to get better at. We practiced pretty well [Tuesday], not great, but I know our guys are going to be focused in on the game Thursday. We just talked about not taking for granted that you’re just going to win at home and that you still have to go out and earn it.”
Maryland’s players, such as sophomore wing Aaron Wiggins, have taken Turgeon’s message to heart. Drawing from their experience against Iowa the first time around, the Terps are determined to display a better effort in front of its home crowd on Thursday night.
“Just being more locked in as a team,” Wiggins said. “We just weren’t ourselves that first game. We weren’t playing confident. We weren’t playing comfortable. We just all looked out of place to a certain degree, out of sorts. So just making sure that we stay in our flow, stay confident, and stay ready to go.”
The Terps know that if they want to have better success against the Hawkeyes in the rematch they’ll have to do a better job of stopping Iowa’s leading scorers Luka Garza (23.1 PPG) and Joe Wieskamp (14.9 PPG), who combined for 47 of their team’s 67 points in the first meeting with Maryland.
“To me, [Garza] has been the Player of the Year in the league so far and he’s a tough load,” Turgeon said of the Washington, D.C., native.
While Garza posted an impressive 21-point, 13-rebound double-double in his first matchup against the Terps this season, it was Wieskamp who scored a game-high 26. The 6-foot-6 sophomore guard has scored in double figures in all but three games this season and in each since his dominant performance against Maryland.
Wieskamp will likely see a healthy dose of Terps’ junior guard Darryl Morsell on Thursday night, and while Morsell knows he’ll have his hands full, he’s up for the challenge.
“He’s good, he’s smooth, he’s a big guard, he scores at all three levels of the floor, too,” Morsell said of Wieskamp. “It should be fun. They got the best of us at Iowa, so we have to try to come out [Thursday] and protect our home court and play Maryland basketball. We know when we’re locked in and just dialed into the specific game plan how effective we can be. So he’s a good player that can score at all three levels and he showed it when he played us the first time. But we just have to come out and play Maryland basketball and we should be good.”
Stopping a 6-foot-11, versatile center like Garza will fall more on the shoulders of Terps’ sophomore forward Jalen ‘Stix’ Smith, who is coming off setting career-highs in scoring in each of his last two games, including dropping 29 points in his last outing at Indiana.
Smith was named Big Ten Player of the Week on Monday after averaging 27 points and 11 rebounds per game the week prior, and his head coach believes he has been battle-tested enough by talented bigs within conference play to handle a player like Garza.
“[Smith] is playing with tremendous confidence,” Turgeon said. “His defense has been really good for a long time, but his offense has been terrific here lately. I think he feels comfortable, but in the Big Ten this year the bigs are terrific and so each and every night it’s a battle.”
Besides poor shooting in their first meeting with Iowa, the Terps also struggled taking care of the ball. Maryland’s 17 turnovers in Iowa City helped the Hawkeyes win big, but Turgeon’s squad has protected the ball better as of late and it will aim to do the same Thursday night against an Iowa team that will likely show multiple defenses.
“The key is we went on the road and had 11 turnovers in two games,” Turgeon said. “We’ve been working on taking care of the ball since April of two years ago when our season ended. We’ve really worked hard on turnovers...Now it’s a whole other animal coming up with Iowa. They can 3-2 (zone). They can 2-3 (zone). They can matchup (zone). They can play man. They can switch screens. They do a lot of different things. It’s just us staying within ourselves, recognizing defenses, and continuing to share the ball.”
Despite winning its last three games, including the program’s first ever win at Assembly Hall during the Turgeon era, the Terps aren’t focused on past success. They’re locked in on Iowa and ready for some revenge.
“We’ve moved on,” Morsell said. “We know how important this game is [Thursday]. It’s a big game, so we’ll try our best to get it.”
Maryland and Iowa are scheduled to tip off in College Park at 8:30 p.m. EST. The game will be broadcast on the Maryland Sports Radio Network and televised on Big Ten Network.
