COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Now alone atop the Big Ten standings, No. 9 Maryland (19-4, 9-3 Big Ten) returns to College Park Feb. 11 for a home matchup against Nebraska (7-16, 2-10) — a team that currently sits at 13th out of 14 teams in the conference. But head coach Mark Turgeon believes his team won’t be taking the Cornhuskers lightly coming off a double-digit road win last Friday at then-No. 20 Illinois.
“I don’t (worry about the team looking ahead of Nebraska) because they’re having so much fun right now,” Turgeon said at practice Feb. 10. “They’re enjoying practice. They’re enjoying being around each other. They’re going to enjoy being in front of the student body tomorrow night. So I really don’t. Are we going to play great? I don’t know. I thought we were going to play great against Rutgers and it was a possession game. But give Rutgers credit, which I did after the game. I think our guys are pretty dialed in. We’ve been that way. We’ve talked about not getting too high, not getting too low, and trying to go out there and get the next one. We left the locker room at Illinois saying, ‘Guys, this is a great win for us but let’s keep it right here, let’s try to get better.’ And [Monday] at practice we’ll try to make them better and I expect us to play well [Tuesday].”
Being back in front of its home crowd will be welcomed by the Terps, as they are a perfect 13-0 at home so far this season.
Since the Maryland students have come back from winter break a little over two weeks ago, Turgeon said he has seen a difference in the intensity brought by the Terps’ home crowd, saying at Monday’s practice that “they came back with a vengeance.” He expects another great crowd at Xfinity Center Tuesday night against the Cornhuskers and couldn’t stress enough what the fan support means to him and his team.
“It is really important to the guys. It’s important to me. It’s the first thing I look at when I walk out — that wall. If it’s full, I know the building is going to be great,” Turgeon said. “It’s important. We understand that. We love playing at home. We feel like these last four home games we’re going to have great crowds. That energizes us to play well.
“I do think there’s a connection between this team and our fan base. The toughness we play with and the determination — you can tell our guys really like each other when we play. So I think that’s starting to filter into our crowd...We’d love to win the rest of our home games, there’s no doubt about it. It sets us up to have a chance to win the Big Ten. It sets us up to have a good seed in the NCAA Tournament.”
Terps’ sophomore wing Aaron Wiggins echoed his coach’s sentiment and can’t wait to get back in front of “the best fans in the country.”
“We as a team, I think we’re really excited to be coming back here and to be in front of the student body. I mean, there’s no greater feeling than playing in front of the best fans in the country,” Wiggins said. “So I think we’re really excited and ready to play, and we’re going to come out here and study, practice, and prepare for the game.”
Wiggins also agreed with Turgeon that he doesn’t think he and his teammates will be looking past Nebraska on Tuesday night.
“I’ve said before that we can’t get too high or too low after wins or a loss, so [Tuesday] we have to look at this game like it’s another Big Ten game and play like we want to play,” Wiggins said.
Tuesday night will mark the first and only time the Terps and Cornhuskers meet this season. Fred Hoiberg’s Nebraska squad will be looking to end its eight-game losing streak but will have a tall task ahead at Xfinity Center. While Maryland has yet to lose a home game this season, the Cornhuskers are still looking for their first true road win of their 2019-20 campaign.
Maryland is currently riding a six-game winning streak comprised of three wins at home and three on the road. But perhaps the Terps’ most impressive win in that stretch came last week in a hostile environment in Champaign, Illinois.
Coming back from 14 points down at one point, Maryland showed resilience and rallied back to claim a decisive victory in a game with first place in the conference on the line.
“It just shows our toughness and our grit as a team and how much we really want it,” Wiggins said. “I think more so we just reminded ourselves of our passion and our toughness and how good we can really be.”
Maryland’s next opponent isn’t excelling in many areas of the game. Besides ranking seventh nationally in offensive turnover percentage while playing at the 31st fastest pace in Division I hoops, per KenPom, the Cornhuskers are average or below average in just about every other metric at both ends of the floor.
One area where the Terps will have a distinct advantage is in size. No player on the Cornhuskers’ roster is taller than 6-foot-9, but Nebraska makes up for its lack of big bodies by playing with speed.
Guards Cam Mack, Haanif Cheatham, and Dachon Burke are Nebraska’s leading scorers, averaging 13.0, 11.9, and 11.4 points per game, respectively. Turgeon knows that neutralizing them will be the key to Tuesday night’s matchup.
“Just their speed and their guards and spacing and driving the ball, and then defensively they sag back in,” Turgeon said of what he sees from Nebraska on film. “But they’re hard to guard and when they get hot they’re really hard to guard. So you have to keep them out of the paint but then you have to guard the three. So they challenge you there. And then just offensively trying to be efficient against them. I think that’s important.”
With no one in the paint that should be able to stop Terps’ sophomore forward Jalen “Stix” Smith, the Baltimore native could be one of Maryland’s biggest X-factors Tuesday night.
It would be fitting for Smith to take over the game on a night where he will be honored by Maryland students wearing “Stix Specs” and sporting “Glow Stix.” The Maryland athletic department announced Sunday that the first 500 Maryland students to get to Tuesday night’s game will receive the “Stix Specs” and the next 2,000 will receive “Glow Stix” as a nod to Smith, who’s averaging 15.0 points, 10.1 rebounds, and 2.4 blocks per game so far this season.
“It’s going to be amazing just knowing that Maryland has recognized my play and decided to dedicate a night to me,” Smith said. “It’s just amazing because most of the people who play on the team don’t ever get a night here. So I’m going to have fun with it...It’s just going to be an amazing night.”
With a victory against Nebraska, Turgeon (199-96) would claim his 200th win as head coach of the Terps and become the fifth head coach in program history to reach the milestone. Only Lefty Driesell (285 games) will have reached the milestone faster in Maryland history.
Maryland and Nebraska are scheduled to tip off Tuesday night at 8:30 p.m. EST. The game will be broadcast on the Maryland Sports Radio Network and televised on the Big Ten Network.
