The path to a Big Ten Tournament championship — as unlikely as that might sound — will be taxing for Maryland men’s basketball.
The Terps (11-20, 4-16 Big Ten), the No. 17 seed, will face No. 16 seed Oregon (12-19, 5-15) in a first-round game on Tuesday at 5 p.m. at the United Center in Chicago. If they win, they would clash with No. 9 seed Iowa (20-11, 10-10) in the second round on Wednesday at noon, meaning they would have less than 18 hours to game plan and rest their bodies for the Hawkeyes.
That possibility of a short turnaround was not lost on Maryland coach Buzz Williams after Sunday’s 78-72 loss to Illinois, the No. 4 seed in the tournament.
“As a staff, we got a lot of work to do, whatever time it is,” he said.
Here are three developments from Sunday’s game:
Andre Mills reinforced that he is the Terps’ primary catalyst
For the sixth consecutive game and seventh time in the past eight contests, Mills emerged as Maryland’s top scorer. The redshirt freshman shooting guard did it again Sunday with a game-high 30 points on 10 of 18 shooting.
Mills has lodged two 30-point performances over that stretch, joining graduate student point guard Diggy Coit as the only Terps with more than one such outing this season. Mills, who scored 16 points in their 89-70 setback at Illinois on Jan. 21, impressed Fighting Illini coach Brad Underwood.
“The Mills kid was terrific,” he said. “We kind of let him have his way on the ball. I didn’t think we were very physical at the point of attack, and we’re going to see that as we move forward, and we better be better than we were tonight because he was fantastic. He was the player of the game.”
Mills credited his progress this winter to a consistent routine that includes waking up at 5 a.m. to begin working out at 5:30 or 5:45 — even on the mornings of games. He said he turned up his own intensity against Illinois.
“Just getting downhill, using my body, working on the floater a lot,” he said. “Just took advantage of that today.”
Foul trouble is a sudden issue for Solomon Washington
For the second time in his past three games, Washington collected his fifth foul and did not finish a game for Maryland.
Show Caption1 of 15Maryland Terrapins forward Solomon Washington hangs on to the rim after throwing down a slam dunk above Illinois Fighting Illini center Tomislav Ivisic and guard Kylan Boswell during a Big Ten matchup of men’s college basketball in College Park. (Karl Merton Ferron/Staff)Expand
After fouling out in a 69-63 loss to Rutgers on March 1, the senior small forward did the same on Sunday. And the latest episode was avoidable because Washington’s fourth foul occurred when he stuck his leg out on a 3-point attempt and tripped Illinois freshman small forward David Mirkovic midway through the second half.
After a review, officials upgraded the foul to a flagrant foul. Before Washington went to the bench, Williams shared some words with him.
“I understand the public exposure that comes with Flagrant 1 appeal on a 3,” he said. “And so I was telling him, ‘Everybody’s watching you, and I’m standing next to you so they’ll talk about me. So just handle this the right way and know that I care about you and love you and will never betray our relationship.’”
When he fouled out, Washington left with a Terps-best seven rebounds and five points. He has led or tied for the team lead in rebounds in nine of the past 10 games, which is a premium for a squad as desperate for boards as Maryland is.
The Terps squandered another golden opportunity
Close contests have been the exception rather than the norm for Maryland, which owns a Big Ten-worst point differential of minus-7.3 and has dropped 16 games by 10 points or more.
So when the Terps have a chance to earn an unanticipated victory like they did against the Fighting Illini and fail to capitalize, the sting tends to linger.
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During his postgame news conference, Mills pointed out that Maryland finished with just three fewer rebounds than Illinois. The Terps drained four more 3-pointers and canned as many field goals as the Fighting Illini did.
But after opening the second half by connecting on 4 of 8 3-pointers, Maryland missed on its final nine attempts of the game. And Illinois dominated points in the paint, 42-20, and second-chance points, 19-6.
With narrow losses to Rutgers twice and Northwestern in the past month, Mills could only rue what might have been.
“We fought really hard,” he said. “We executed the game plan. … Everything was what we call a push. All the stats were one to two off — rebounding, assists, etc. We thought we just could have pulled away with this one. It was a winnable game.”
Have a news tip? Contact Edward Lee at eklee@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/EdwardLeeSun.
