Senior day for Maryland men’s basketball is officially in the books as Julian Reese headlined one of five players honored ahead of the 13-point win vs. Northwestern, securing the program’s most home wins since the 2014-15 season. While walk-on Ben Murphy joined a trio of honored transfers in Selton Miguel, Jay Young and Jordan Geronimo, head coach Kevin Willard noted the years of honoring four-year players like Julian Reese “are over.”
“I had someone's family members show me their phone call list. They had - it was comical - there was three schools from our conference and two schools from my old conference that had called 42 times in the last three days,” Willard said on Talkin’ Terps with Johnny Holliday. “The chances that you can beat that are pretty rare.”
As Maryland looks to enjoy the rare feat of the hometown four-year player leading the program into the postseason, the first stop is the conference tournament where Maryland drew a two-seed, its best finish since 2019-20. The only certainty is that Illinois is a potential first game contender with the Illini set to kick off their tournament run against the winner of Ohio State and Iowa on Thursday.
Maryland, meanwhile, will take the floor at 6:30 PM EST on BTN on Friday and despite uncertainty about Maryland men’s basketball’s first opponent in the Big Ten Tournament, head coach Kevin Willard said “75% of preparation” will be on seven-seed Illinois.
“We just played Iowa so Iowa is fresh and we played Ohio State twice. So we know Ohio State. We just played Iowa. We'll probably spend most of - I would say 75% of preparation on Illinois just because, again, they have a bye and so they're going to be playing a team that just played. But we're really fresh with Ohio State because we played them twice and we just played Iowa. So we'll spend most of our time on Illinois.”
Maryland’s lone matchup against the Illini proved to be the statement win of the regular season after going into Champaign to pull out a 91-70 win back on Jan. 23, continuing their unusual dominance against the Illini on the road. But that also came when Tomislav Ivišić sidelined and Will Riley were limited as the Illini battled through illness during a portion of conference play.
Fast forward to March, with the Illini coming off an eight-point win against Purdue on Senior Day marked their second consecutive ranked win and third overall to end the regular season, Willard noted that Illinois is a “fun team to watch play.”
“They offensive rebound better than any team in college basketball. They shoot the three more than anybody else. They're so super talented, they pass the basketball. So I think it's - they had a struggle there. They had some flu games. They had some guys who were injured. And you know, Brad's as good a coach as there is and he's figured it out and got them playing really good basketball.”
Whether the current conference tournament format remains the same in 2025-26 may be up in the air, though.
“I think that's gonna hopefully change next year.” Willard said about three teams omitted from the conference tournament. “I know the coaches are not overly happy about that. That was a decision made in the office. Like you said, people make decisions about your game and your career that don't talk to you. And I think the coaches were a little shocked that that's what was going to happen. So hopefully - our commissioner in the Big Ten is as good as anybody, anywhere and I think he understands for the student athlete experience, you should have a right to play in postseason basketball after you played 32 games. And I'm hoping we get that fixed next year.”
Meanwhile, college basketball analyst John Fanta picked Maryland as his Big Ten Tournament winner on Monday.
“I really like Maryland’s draw in the Big Ten [Tournament],” Fanta said on the Field of 68 show. “Like really like their bracket. I think Kevin Willard and his team - they've lost one game in the last like four weeks, and it was at the buzzer on a halfcourt shot, or beyond a halfcourt shot.”
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