Pregame Guide and Prediction: #11 Illinois @ Maryland

The regular season is coming to an end. Illinois has one final test before they begin postseason play. The Maryland Terrapins have brought so much suffering to Illinois over the last 7 years. No matter how good Illinois has been, beating Maryland has been a nearly insurmountable obstacle for the Illini to overcome. Buzz Williams is in his first season with Maryland, and it seems like Maryland's reign over Illinois is done. In the first meeting in January, Illinois won 89-70, but it was a 35-point game late in the second half. Illinois absolutely dominated a terrible Maryland team. The Illini will now have to go on the road and beat this awful Maryland team for the second time this season. It will determine where Illinois is seeded in the NCAA Tournament. If Illinois has finally exercised their Maryland demons, the Illini should leave College Park with a stress-free win and no damage done to their resume.

When these two met on January 21st, it was Illinois' first game without Kylan Boswell. Someone had to step up, and that night it was Andrej Stojakovic. He finished the game with 30 points and played outstanding defense on Diggy Coit all night. After his good outing against Oregon on Tuesday, I think this a good spot for Stojakovic to build up even more momentum.

Since Maryland was down by 30+ in the second half, everyone probably remembers that game being over from the start. That was not the case. Maryland was competitive in the first 12 minutes of the game. The Illini actually trailed by 4 at the under-8 media timeout. Illinois had a difficult time getting stops, but the Illini closed the half on a 25-4 run to take a 17-point lead into the break. Illinois continued to dominate in the second half and never looked back.

Maryland is not a good basketball team. There is no need to sugarcoat it. They are 11-19 and rank outside the top 135 in both offensive and defensive efficiency on Torvik. The one thing Maryland does well is attack the offensive glass. They shoot threes at the 38th highest rate in the country but only make 31.8% of them. This allows Maryland to be able to get a good chunk of those misses back. In the first matchup, Maryland got 9 offensive rebounds. All five guys for the Illini need to box out. The Ivisic twins were much more active on the glass on Tuesday than they have been in the last few weeks. That needs to carry over into Sunday afternoon. Maryland does not have much size to combat Illinois, so the Illini were able to gather 15 offensive rebounds of their own.

Not much has changed about Maryland since the first meeting, but one of their players is starting to come on. Freshman Andre Mills is averaging 18.2 ppg over the last 10. He also hit 4 threes against the Illini earlier. In the first matchup the question was how Illinois would stop Diggy Coit. Well, he hasn't played in over 20 minutes in their last 4 games, so I am not really sure what is happening there. Illinois' number one priority will be slowing down Andre Mills now. As long as no one on Maryland has a generational night, Illinois should feel pretty good about taking care of business.

Prediction:

Illinois has done a phenomenal job of beating opponents they should beat all season. Other than the slip up at UCLA, Illinois has never left doubt against a worse team at full strength. It's part of why I am still confident Illinois will reach the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament. I like Illinois to come into College Park and take Maryland out of the game early. I would like to see Illinois build an early lead and try to get Tomislav Ivisic out of his offensive slump. I would like to see Tomi get some post touches and work inside out. I'll take Illinois to win handily. Give me Illinois 87-64.

It's the Tomislav Ivisic game