For the second time under Kevin Willard and third time over the last five seasons, Maryland men’s basketball has punched its ticket in the NCAA Tournament.
Maryland drew a four-seed, its best seeding since the 2015 NCAA Tournament for its 31st all-time appearance for Maryland which has a 44-29 record in the NCAA Tournament. Maryland will face 13th-seed Grand Canyon , who won the WAC and finished 26-7. First game is set in Seattle with Maryland in the West Region. The Terps have reached the Sweet Sixteen 14 times, the Elite Eight four times, the Final Four twice, and won the NCAA National Championship title in 2002. Kevin Willard is 2-6 all-time in the NCAA Tournament, including 1-1 at Maryland.
Maryland finished the regular season 24-7 and second in the Big Ten, the second top-five finish in conference play under Willard, before splitting their Big Ten Tournament games against Illinois and Michigan.
“It's a learning lesson. That's the way I talk to them,” head coach Kevin Willard said after Saturday’s loss. “That's the way we're going to look at it. We did a lot of things right to get to that spot. We just did one thing wrong. It's disappointing, but every time we've had one of these losses -- and we've had four of them now-- these guys have learned what we've done wrong, and we've actually bounced back and come back. I'm going to use the same thing.”
“We're not satisfied,” Selton Miguel said. “Of course it happened. We had four losses, all buzzer beaters. The main focus is just stay together all the time and keep playing. I know it came down to the last play, but we did everything we could to win the game.”
“Just make smarter decisions on the defensive end, no fouls, but just contain and stay in front of them. Hopefully we're never in that position again to even do that,” Derik Queen added.
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