The road to a Big Ten Championship doesn’t get any easier
After a huge win at Michigan on Friday, Michigan State will face another formidable road challenge tomorrow in the form of the Maryland Terrapins (6:30 PM, BTN).
The Spartans vaulted back into first place in the Big Ten with Friday’s win, which put them at 13-3. Maryland sits two games back at 11-5. The Terrapins would obviously need some help to get a piece of the regular season crown. That is definitely in play for this team, but they probably need to win out. This is another huge game in the conference and Michigan State needs to expect the best effort from a Maryland team that is playing extremely well at the right time.
Maryland has won four in a row, but against teams mostly in the middle tier of the conference standings: Rutgers, Nebraska, Iowa, and USC. Their last loss was 73-70 at Ohio State on February 6. They had another four game win streak prior to the OSU loss which featured wins over another contender for the Big Ten championship, Wisconsin, and a 21 point victory over then #17 but now reeling Illinois.
The Wisconsin win is probably Maryland’s best to this point. Their only real out of conference challenge resulted in a 78-74 loss at home to Marquette in November. Other quality losses, if there should be such a thing, were 83-78 at Purdue in December and 83-79 at Oregon in early January. They went to the Pacific Northwest instead of Southern California but, like Michigan State, Maryland went 0-2 on their West Coast swing, suffering a bad loss to Washington just prior to the Oregon game. The Terrapins’ other “bad” loss was by two in overtime at Northwestern on January 16.
While Michigan State is still going ten players deep late into the season, Maryland gets contributions mainly from their five starters, who all average 28-31 minutes and 12-16 points per game. Perhaps a sign of the times, Maryland’s starting group features three transfers, one freshman, and only one returning player from last year’s team.
Freshman Derik Queen leads Maryland with 16 points and 9 rebounds per game. He is a strong post player at 6’-10” and 246 pounds. Queen is making 55% of his shots and is good from the free throw line at 77% but he will not look to extend defenses. Queen is making less than 10% from three point range and hasn’t attempted a three point shot since January 26.
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Ja’Kobi Gillespie is a 6’-1” transfer from Belmont. After scoring over 17 a game at the mid-major level last year, Gillespie’s talents have transferred to the Big Ten where he’s scoring 15 a game and dishing out nearly 5 assists. Gillespie is a dangerous shooter, hitting 47.5% overall, 42.5% from three and 82.5% at the line.
Sophomore Rodney Rice, a 6’-4” Virginia Tech transfer, and 6’-4” Senior Selton Miguel round out Mayrland’s perimeter. Rice only played in eight games last year for the Hokies but is scoring nearly 14 per game this year on 46% shooting, including 37% from three.
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Miguel is from Angola and, like Gellespie and Rice, is also in his first year at Maryland. He previously spent two years each at Kansas State and USF. This year for Maryland, Miguel is scoring 12 per game and, at 43%, is another three point threat for the Terrapins.
Julian Reese joins Queen in Maryland’s frontcourt and is the only returning starter for the Terrapins. Reese, a 6’-9” senior, has spent his entire college career at Maryland and has scored in double figures since his sophomore season. This year he is averaging 14 points per game to go along with 9 rebounds. Reese shoots nearly 60% from the floor as most of his scoring opportunities are near the basket. Like Queen, he’s unlikely to venture out to the three point line.
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Kevin Willard is in his third year coaching Maryland after a long stint with Seton Hall. Prior to Seton Hall, Willard was the head coach at Iona College for three years and had assistant coaching stints at Louisville and the Boston Celtics. The Terrapins struggled to a 16-17 record last year but, in the first year under Willard, Maryland went 22-13 and advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament.
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Maryland clearly has a talented roster, is playing well, and sits near the top of the league standings but Michigan State should match up well. The Spartan backcourt has been exceptional on defense and, while Michigan’s bigs did some damage on Friday, the Spartans prevented Vlad Goldin and Danny Wolf from dominating the inside. Queen and Reese will certainly present another challenge tomorrow but they’re not quite as tall as Goldin and Wolf. If Carson Cooper, Syzmon Zapala, and Jaxon Kohler, maybe with a little help from Xavier Booker, can hold down the inside then the Spartan guards should be able to control the perimeter.
Other factors may be the crowd at Maryland’s Xfinity Center and how well MSU shoots it. The Maryland faithful will certainly be up for this one but the Spartans have handled raucous crowds at Illinois and Michigan and come home with victories.
The Spartans have shot well all season from inside the three point line but, in this three game win streak, the long ball has started to fall a little more frequently. On the season, Michigan State is still hitting less than 30% of their threes but look at what’s happened in the last three games:
OPPONENT MSU
FG% 3P% FG% 3P%
Illinois 38.1 21.2 48.5 41.7
Purdue 51.1 37.5 58.3 30.8
Michigan 46.0 23.8 45.9 40.9
The Spartans were about on their three point shooting average against Purdue but offset that by shooting incredibly well on two pointers. They’ve been above 40% from three in the other two games, although Jaxon Kohler did most of the damage against Illinois. Purdue shot it well against the Spartans but Illinois and Michigan were very limited from deep. Also, in the last eight games, only Indiana has scored more than 70 against the Spartans and the Hoosiers barely did that with 71.
Michigan State’s defense should travel. They should expect and be able to handle the fired up crowd. They figured out how to find success against Michigan’s zone defense in the second half and punished the Wolverines on the offensive glass. They’ve even overcome scoring droughts and runs by the opposing team and come back to win.
Maybe the biggest question here is can the Spartans get just enough threes to force the Maryland defense out a bit to open up a little more room inside the three point line?
Your turn, TOC. What are your keys to this game?