Michigan Basketball: 3 Predictions for Wolverines at Maryland
Michigan basketball hits the road tonight for the second straight game as the Wolverines travel to Maryland. Here are three predictions.
There’s no doubt that Michigan basketball hasn’t faced the most difficult schedule in the Big Ten conference through two games of league play.
But all that starts to change Thursday night as Michigan basketball will play Maryland, which is currently 38th in the Kenpom rankings, and is the highest ranking of any U-M opponent thus far.
Nebraska was ranked outside the top 100, so even though a conference road win is always good, a win at Maryland should hold much more weight.
The Terps have had some ups and downs this season. Maryland has already lost three games and dropped Big Ten games to Rutgers at home by double digits and at Purdue. The other loss was by double figures at Clemson.
Eric Ayala is the Terps leading scorer (14.7ppg) and another big threat is stretch four Donta Scott, who is averaging 12.9 points and 6.9 rebounds, as well as Aaron Wiggins. Maryland only scores 74 points a game and part of the season is its adjusted tempo ranks 306th.
The Terps take around 55 shots per game, which ranks 287th in the nation. Michigan isn’t much higher at 58 shots per game and both teams rank in the top 55 in field goal percentage with Maryland ranking 55th and Michigan 15th.
And without any further ado, here are three predictions for Michigan and Maryland:
It’s going to be a grind
This game is probably a toss-up. The Wolverines come in as a one-point favorite, which means they are viewed as the better team but that’s usually negated a little on the road.
The Terps play a lot of man-to-man defense and pressure people but they don’t force a ton of turnovers. Those efforts to force offenses to take longer to get into their sets and that’s part of the strategy.
U-M should have a solid advantage inside on the offensive end with Hunter Dickinson and I’d expect the offense to run through him, despite what will surely be a number of double teams just as Nebraska did.
The Wolverines have scored 80 points or more in six of their seven games this season, while Maryland hasn’t allowed a single team to reach 80 yet. Maryland’s pace will purposely slow this game down and for the second time this season, U-M won’t get to 80. In may not get 70.