Maryland men’s basketball will look to avenge last season’s loss vs. Villanova when the two teams meet at the Prudential Center this Sunday, and while plenty can change, the Terps’ next opponent serves as a chance to add a marque win to its early NCAA Tournament resume.
Villanova marks the lone Quad One opponent on Maryland’s non-conference schedule with Syracuse, who will face Maryland on Dec. 21 game at the Barclays Center, currently projected as a Quad Two matchup. Head coach Kevin Willard watched his team inch close toward its first Quad One win of the season until Kam Jones took over for Marquette down the stretch, scoring 18 of his 28 points in the second half to hand Maryland its first loss of the season.
The Terps’ home loss marks the lone blemish to open a season that hasn’t been filled with competition given three of Maryland’s first five opponents are currently sub-300 KenPom ranked teams with Mount St. Mary’s ranked 275th, but they’ve fared better than Villanova.
In year three of the Kyle Neptune era, Villanova opened the season with a pair of disappointing losses, the first a ten-point loss vs. Columbia at home only to follow it up with a seven-point loss at St. Joe’s six days. Three days later, a ten-point loss against Virginia in Baltimore pushed Villanova to 2-3 overall, the first time since Big East reconfiguration that the Wildcats fell below .500. Neptune is now 38-35 as the program’s head coach after Villanova was able to get back in the win column after defeating Penn, 93-49, on Tuesday, though he wasn’t concerned about the upcoming matchup vs. Maryland yet.
“I have no idea. [I] was focused on this game. I literally have no clue,” Neptune said when asked about Sunday’s showdown.
Maryland will now look to capitalize on what now appears to be its final Quad One opportunity of non-conference play, and the last Quad One opponent until Maryland travels to Purdue on Dec. 8 for game two of the Big Ten slate.
Maryland was among one of four “First Four Out” teams in Joe Lunardi’s latest bracketology update on Tuesday.
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