Terps continue to struggle on the road under Kevin Willard | TAKEAWAYS

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Another road game, another loss for Maryland men’s basketball.

As encouraging as the Terps’ 13-5 overall record appears, they can’t seem to win a matchup outside of Xfinity Center in College Park or a neutral site. They dropped to 0-4 in away games after falling at Northwestern, 76-74, in overtime on junior small forward Nick Martinelli’s buzzer-beating midrange jumper.

Maryland, which is 3-4 in the Big Ten, has lost in its past five true road contests and hasn’t been on the positive side of a result in front of an opposing home crowd since Feb. 25, 2024, when that squad blasted Rutgers, 63-46, in Piscataway, New Jersey.

From a larger perspective, the Terps have fared poorly away from home under coach Kevin Willard. They are 4-20 in the conference on the road and 6-21 overall since Willard assumed the helm before the start of the 2022-23 season.

What makes this season particularly frustrating is that Maryland has demonstrated an ability to compete with ranked league rivals inside their friendly confines such as then-No. 8 Purdue (an 83-78 loss on Dec. 8) and then-No. 9 Oregon (an 83-79 setback on Jan. 5), but then can’t execute against a Washington team that was 0-2 in the Big Ten before finishing off a 75-69 victory on Jan. 2 and a Wildcats squad that had lost to three straight conference foes and been 1-4 before Thursday.

No one is expecting the Terps to go undefeated on the road. But if they are serious about suggesting they can contend for a Big Ten championship and make an extended run in the NCAA Tournament, games like those at Washington and Northwestern are the types they should win to prevent these setbacks from haunting them later.

Here are three more observations from Thursday’s outcome.

Derik Queen’s struggles on the road continue

Let’s be clear: the freshman center from Baltimore has made Maryland exponentially better. But like the team, he can’t seem to solve the equation in Big Ten games on the road.

After a 26-point, 12-rebound performance in…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/terps-continue-struggle-road-under-174600813.html

Author : Baltimore Sun

Publish date : 2025-01-17 17:46:00

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