Maryland Basketball: Terps set to play Belmont Basketball in first round

No. 6 seed Maryland Basketball will take on No. 11 seed Belmont in the first-round of the NCAA Tournament. Game time is 3:10 pm ET on truTV.

Maryland basketball finally knows its first-round opponent. At least officially, that is. Belmont basketball coach Rick Byrd finally broke his seven-game losing streak in the NCAA Tournament after the Bruins won by 11 to beat the Owls. This was his 805th career win in 33 years as the Bruins head coach.

He had Kevin McClain (29 points, four rebounds, two assists) and Nick Muszynski (16 points, four rebounds, three assists) to thank for their efforts in the win.  Temple’s Nate Pierre-Louis (13 points, 11 rebounds, five assists) was tasked with guarding the Ohio Valley Conference’s third-leading scorer, Dylan Windler (21.4 PPG),  and locked him down as a scorer. That didn’t stop Windler from pulling down a game-high 14 rebounds to go along with five points and three steals. Shizz Alston Jr finished with 21 points, five assists and three rebounds in the loss.

This Belmont-Temple matchup was a game of runs by each team in the first half. The lead changed hands back and forth as it went on. After starting the game 3-of-9, the Owls made six of their next seven shots to take a 22-17 lead. Two separate runs by Belmont basketball gave them the lead late in the first half. The Bruins finished the first half up six, 37-31. McClain scored 10 of their 14 points to close out the half.

Alston Jr. cut the Owls deficit to six, 42-36 early in the second half and a sequence of solid defense by both teams was capped off by an Alston three-pointer. The Owls went on a 10-0 run to start the second half and Alston Jr started to heat up. He had 18 points shooting 50 percent from three as the game was tied at 46 with 13:34 remaining. The Owls went on a 17-4 run to take a 48-46 lead.

Belmont held a 56-55 lead with 7:38 left in the game. Muszynski was the story of the game, playing on a sore ankle that kept him out of the Ohio Valley Conference Championship game. A 20-5 run leading to a 67-57 lead under four minutes to go set Belmont on their way to victory.

While the Bruins are coming off of a big win to advance to the first round, Maryland basketball is coming off of a shell-shocking loss to the Nebraska Cornhuskers. They had about a week of rest prior to that game and are looking to rewrite what went wrong there. In eight years as the head coach of the Terrapins, head coach Mark Turgeon has only made one significant run. Here is a look at his postseason history with the Terps:

• 2011-12: Missed NCAA Tournament
• 2012-13: Missed NCAA Tournament
• 2013-14: Missed NCAA Tournament
• 2014-15: Lost in the second round (No. 4 seed)
• 2015-16: Lost in the Sweet 16 (No. 5 seed)
• 2016-17: Lost in the first round (No. 6 seed)
• 2017-18: Missed NCAA Tournament

Nonetheless, Maryland should be the better team in this matchup. Belmont could easily struggle. The Bruins are going to have their hands full with First Team All-Big Ten First and Defensive Team Forward Bruno Fernando and All-Big Ten Freshman Jalen Smith. This is a front court like the Bruins have never faced and they may present challenges that the Temple Owls did not.

The Bruins present a challenge to the Terps with the way they shoot and score the ball. They rank second in the nation behind Gonzaga with 87.4 points per game. The Terps are tied for third in the Big Ten in scoring defense with 65.1 points per game. Both of these teams rebound the ball close to 40 times per game so it will be interesting to see who wins that battle.

If Pierre-Louis was able to prevent Windler from scoring big, will Darryl Morsell be asked to do the same for Maryland basketball? Will the Terps put different players on him? The way I see it, the Terps can’t afford for McClain to drop close to 30 points on them too. This should be a very entertaining matchup with a lot on the line for the Terps and a promising run in store with an upset for the Bruins.