Minnesota (8-8, 0-5) at Maryland (12-4, 2-3)
When: Jan. 13, 2025 | 6:30 PM | Xfinity Center
TV: BTN | Jason Horowitz & Bruce Weber
Radio: One Maryland App | 105.7 FM (Baltimore) | 980 AM (DC) | SiriusXM channel 372
Betting: Maryland -14.5 | O/U: 135.5 (FanDuel)
Maryland men's basketball is back in action on Monday night as they look for their first win against Minnesota since Feb. 4, 2023 while head coach Kevin Willard looks to guide his team back to .500 in conference play.
Minnesota was picked to finish last in the expanded Big Ten, and through the 2024 portion and the first two weeks of the new year, the Gophers have lived up to those expectations.
Minnesota enters Monday’s matchup winless in conference play and sitting at .500 overall with close losses against North Texas, Wichita State and Wake Forest before losing by a combined 33 points against Michigan State and Indiana to open conference play. The Gophers nearly pulled out their first Big Ten win before falling in double overtime against the Buckeyes, 89-88, at home. Minnesota nearly took that momentum on the road after trailing by one against Wisconsin at the break before the short-handed Badgers outscored the Gophers, 50-30, in the second-half.
The Gophers are also looking for their first win outside of the Williams Arena in five tries this season.
Dawson Garcia leads the way for the Gophers, sitting fifth in the Big Ten as he accounts for over one quarter of Minnesota’s points so far this season. The senior is one of three averaging double figures with Mike Mitchell, who missed seven games earlier this season, shooting over 40% from both the field and three-point while adding 11.9 points per game. Lu'Cye Patterson has been among the most efficient players in the league, sitting fifth in assist-to-turnover ratio (3.59), and is the third Gopher averaging double-figures with 10.4 points per game. Patterson and Garcia are the lone players to start all 16 games this season, while Femi Odukale has been a force in the rotation and nearly matches Ja'Kobi Gillespie's steal total so far this season.
Still, Minnesota sits dead last in the conference as the lone team averaging under 70 points per game while shooting just 61.8% from the line as a team.
Meanwhile, Maryland is coming off an 18-point win against 22nd-ranked UCLA for its first ranked win of the season, ending a two-game slide as Ja'Kobi Gillespie led the way with a career-high 27 points in the win on Friday night. While it marked Gillespie's third 20-point game of the season, he was one of three to finish in double figures on Friday as Julian Reese notched his seventh double-double of the season, while Maryland has had five different players score at least 20 points in a game this season.
"I feel like us being locked in defensively really helped us get flowing offensively. Just I was making shots, so I just kept shooting," Gillespie said after the win.
“Obviously it's huge. I mean, you saw us out there," Willard added. "I thought we played well at spurts out there. And, you know, it was good to come home and just have a couple days and obviously have a great home crowd. I mean it's our first conference game at home since December 2. So when you have that big of a load and you have three in a row, technically on the road, and you play well in the road, but you don't win, it's good to come home and get a [win].”
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