There was no basketball game in Maryland Thursday night, but it was a win for the Terps. Two teams that threatened to pass them in the final standings lost down-to-wire games, boosting Maryland’s Big Ten standings and seeding for conference tournaments.
First, Rutgers blew a 10-point lead with 75 seconds left in Minnesota, losing on a buzzer-beater. It was a terrible loss for the Scarlet Knights’ postseason profile to the bottom-ranked team in the Big Ten with a 1-16 conference record. However, from Maryland’s perspective, it was great. The Scarlet Knights were 10-8 and would have passed the terps 11-8 in the tournament seeding if they had won their last two games thanks to their head-to-head victory in the only meeting between the two. Maryland can now guarantee its finish ahead of Rutgers with a win at Penn State or a Rutgers loss to Northwestern.
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The bigger one came later when Michigan lost to Illinois in overtime. The Wolverines were the only 11-7 team in the conference, sitting alone in second place behind Purdue and dangling their toes over a crowd of eight-loss teams. Michigan’s loss joins a chaotic stack of seven (seven!) teams with eight losses, six of which share second place 11-8 and Michigan State wins one 10-8. Why is this big for Maryland? The Terps regained the tiebreak advantage over Michigan thanks to their 1-1 record against Purdue compared to Michigan’s 0-1 record against the first-seeded Boilermakers.
Had Michigan won both remaining games it would have finished second, but that would be difficult on road trips to Illinois and Indiana. If they lose at Bloomington or Maryland wins at Penn State on Sunday, Kevin Willard’s team will finish with the higher seed. While the loss to Ohio State severely hurt their prospects, everyone else is helping, first with Indiana home losses to Iowa and Northwestern to Penn State, then Michigan and Rutgers losses. If they don’t get a double bye, it’s not anyone else’s fault.
How much did Maryland’s prospects improve after those two results compared to a few hours earlier?
Their odds of getting the second seed increased from four percent to 22 percent. Their chances of a place in the top 4 and the valuable double dye that comes with it increased from 60 percent to 77 percent. Iowa is Maryland’s top competition because the Hawkeyes are the only one of those six teams to tie for second place and hold a tiebreaker over Maryland.
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The bottom line: If Willard can find the magic button to take a road win from his team Sunday at Penn State, it won’t matter much what anyone else does. A win won’t seed the Terps lower than third, and they will be No. 2 if Nebraska can upset Iowa. If they lose, like they did on their last five trips to Happy Valley, they’ll likely fall somewhere in the #5 to #5. 7 range, with #7 being the most likely scenario.
A tiny margin of error in the final days of the busiest Big Ten scoring since joining the conference.