Ohio State wouldn’t greatly help its postseason chances with a win against reeling Maryland on Thursday night in College Park, Md., but a loss to the Terrapins could be damaging.
The Buckeyes (14-7, 6-5 Big Ten) are 41st in the NET rankings, and BracketMatrix.com — a compiler of NCAA Tournament projections — has them as a No. 11 seed.
Maryland (8-13, 1-9) is No. 171 in the NET and is coming off resounding losses to highly ranked teams. The Terrapins fell 89-70 to now-No. 5 Illinois, 91-48 to No. 10 Michigan State, and 93-63 on Sunday to No. 12 Purdue and have lost seven of their past eight games.
Terrapins coach Buzz Williams said his players remain positive.
“Their resilience and their resolve, I have been ultra-pleased with and stand at attention and respect towards how they’ve handled it,” he said Monday. “The results obviously are not what we want, nor what the University of Maryland desires and is committed to doing, and we’re going to keep trying to improve that.”
The Buckeyes are coming off a 92-82 loss to Wisconsin in a game in which defensive breakdowns were glaring. Forward Amare Bynum said that is an area his team must improve in against Mayland.
“We weren’t connected on our communication and then our rotations; we’ve got to be more urgent,” he said. “That was about it. We’ve got to be more vocal on the court. When we go into a zone, we’ve got to match up better.”
At the other end of the court, Taison Chatman has added much-needed production from the depth players. After scoring a career-high 11 points in an 84-78 victory vs. Penn State on Jan. 26, he followed with 14 against the Badgers.
“We’ve been looking for offensive punch off the bench all season, so we’re getting a little bit of that,” Ohio State coach Jake Diebler said.
For the Terrapins, Andre Mills scored a career-high 18 points against Purdue as they continue to struggle without injured leading scorer Pharrel Payne (17.5 ppg), who has missed the past 10 games because of a leg injury.
“We’re focused on us getting better every single day, and that’s going to make the outcome different,” Maryland guard Darius Adams said. “Obviously there’s frustration just because we’re losing, but I don’t think it’s going to be a big thing.”
