What to Expect: IU basketball travels to Maryland

Maryland guard David Coit.

Indiana is back on the road for a matchup with Maryland on Wednesday night at the Xfinity Center. The Hoosiers, winners of three straight, are in search of their first road win this season.

The Terrapins are 7-7 and 0-3 under first-year coach Buzz Williams. Wednesday’s game is set for a 6:30 p.m. ET tipoff on BTN:

After a Sweet Sixteen appearance last season, Maryland was forced to completely flip its roster in the offseason when Kevin Willard left College Park for Villanova.

Injuries and inconsistent play have the Terps off to a slow start in the first season of the Buzz Williams era. Maryland is currently projected to finish 12-19 and 5-15 in the Big Ten, per KenPom.com.

Indiana, meanwhile, has been excellent at home and poor away from Bloomington. The Hoosiers beat a bad Marquette team in Chicago by 23 early in the season, but have lost their other three games away from Assembly Hall. IU fell by 9 to Minnesota, by 9 to Louisville in Indianapolis and by 12 to Kentucky in Lexington.

Winning on the road in the Big Ten is difficult, but the Hoosiers have solid opportunities for success away from Bloomington this month with trips to Maryland and Rutgers.

MEET THE TERRAPINS

Maryland’s leading scorer, big man Pharrel Payne, has missed three straight games after suffering a knee injury in a loss to Michigan in College Park on Dec. 13. Payne also missed a game on Nov. 19 against Mount St. Mary’s with a hip injury. Williams has not provided a definitive update on Payne’s status.

If he’s able to play, he’s a game-changer for the Terps with his 17.5 points and 7.2 rebounds in 26.7 minutes per game.

Without Payne, Maryland is playing an undersized, guard-heavy lineup. Its two leading backcourt scorers are Kansas transfer David Coit, a senior, and freshman Darius Adams, who originally signed with UConn but reopened his recruitment and signed with the Terps last spring.

Coit (13.3 ppg) is a 5-foot-11 lead guard who has connected on a team-leading 37 3-pointers while shooting 42.5 percent from distance. He made eight 3-pointers in a 101-83 loss to No. 2 Michigan on Dec. 13. He’s also an excellent free-throw shooter (92.5 percent) and is the guy to circle on the scouting report for the Hoosiers. Strong closeouts and running Coit off the 3-point line are key for Indiana’s defense. Coit has started eight of Maryland’s 14 games but has come off the bench in the last two contests.

Adams, a 6-foot-5 native of New Jersey who finished his high school career at La Lumiere, has been a high-volume, low-efficiency player through the first 14 games of his career. Adams is third on the roster in scoring at 12.5 points per game but is shooting 36.8 percent on 2s and 25.4 percent on 3s.

Darius Adams and David Coit shot chart.

(Shot charts via UMHoops.com)

The rotation also features Washington State transfer Isaiah Watts, freshman Andre Mills and Indiana transfer Myles Rice.

The 6-foot-4 Mills is the leading scorer of that trio and has started 11 of 14 games. The No. 119 player in the 247Sports Composite in the 2024 class, Mills redshirted the 2024-25 season at Texas A&M and followed Williams to Maryland.

He has taken roughly half of his field goal attempts from distance and is shooting 26.3 percent on 3-pointers. Mills, who averages 8.9 points, has scored in double figures seven times and had a season-high 16 points against Alcorn State on November 11.

Watts spent the last two seasons at Washington State, where he was a teammate of Rice back in the 2023-24 campaign. He’s scored 28 points over the team’s last two games, which are two of his three double-figure scoring games this season. Watts averages 6.2 points and shoots 32.7 percent from distance.

Rice missed time early in the season with an ankle injury and has made three starts across 10 games. He’s 8-for-21 from distance (38.1 percent), 16-for-40 on 2s (40 percent) and has missed one of his 24 free throw attempts.

Andre Mills and Isaiah Watts shot chart.

Up front, the Terps go with 6-foot-7 senior Solomon Washington, a Texas A&M transfer, and 6-foot-8 senior Elijah Saunders, a Virginia transfer.

Washington missed the first eight games of the season with an ankle injury but made his season debut against Wagner on December 2. He’s scored in double figures three times in six games and had a season-high 17 points, 12 rebounds and two blocked shots in a 64-54 home loss to Oregon on January 2. Washington has 23 offensive rebounds in six games and has to be accounted for when shots go up. Washington is averaging 10 points and nine rebounds in 28.5 minutes per game.

Saunders began his career at San Diego State, where he was a part of NCAA tournament teams in 2023 and 2024. He’s capable of stretching the floor – 15-for-39 on 3s – but isn’t a great finisher in the paint. Saunders is shooting just 46.2 percent on 2s.

Freshman George Turkson, a 6-foot-7 forward, has started two games and had eight points in 32 minutes in the Michigan loss. And 6-foot-9 senior Collin Metcalf, a transfer from Northeastern, plays spot minutes in the frontcourt but has scored just 10 points total across 13 games.

TEMPO-FREE PREVIEW

(All national rankings in parentheses through Monday’s games.)

Tempo-free stats preview for IU-Maryland.

The Maryland offensive profile shows a high-volume 3-point shooting team that is below average in its percentage. Maryland is taking 44.9 percent of its field goal attempts from distance, ranking 81st nationally, and shooting 32.8 percent from deep, ranking 211th nationally.

Pounding the offensive glass and getting to the free-throw line are keys for Maryland. The Terps rank 103rd in offensive rebounding percentage and 28th in free-throw rate (FTA/FGA).

Maryland is generating 26.3 percent of its points from the line, which is eighth-best in the country. Defending without fouling will be pivotal for IU’s success, which has been a problem away from home. Minnesota got to the line 27 times against IU, Louisville 28 times, and Kentucky had 38 free throw attempts.

Defensively, Maryland does a solid job forcing turnovers, ranking 83rd nationally in opponent turnover percentage. Opponents are shooting 36.9 percent on 3s (315th nationally) and 52.9 percent (221st nationally), which means the Hoosiers will have opportunities for quality looks. In IU’s three losses, it is shooting 23-for-85 (27.1 percent) from 3.

WHAT IT COMES DOWN TO

The KenPom projection has Indiana by seven with a 73 percent chance of victory and Bart Torvik has the Hoosiers by 10 with an 82 percent chance of victory.

If Payne returns, the Terps will be a different team in the frontcourt and will present significant problems on the offensive glass. Even if he remains sidelined, Indiana’s play away from Bloomington this season suggests this game will be more difficult than the analytics project.

Simply put, the Hoosiers have not yet proven they can win on the road and haven’t been able to shoot the ball well or keep opponents off the free-throw line in their losses. Life on the road in the Big Ten is difficult but if the Hoosiers aspire to be an NCAA tournament team, this is a game they need to win.

(Photo credit: Maryland Athletics)

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