We have 2 freshman playing starter minutes. If you thought this season was going to be a cake walk to the final four you hit the koolaid a little too hard. We have a really good team, but all the prognostications that we would be a great 3 point shooting team have not proven out once again. I think we will improve as the season progresses. Unexpected losses happen to every team. Learning from their mistakes is key. We have work to do on that.
I absolutely agree with the sentiment of this post, though this is actually a very good shooting team -- we're currently #4 nationally in 3P%, and 4th in conference play. But you're right on about the rest of it. I think folks are underestimating how good Maryland is this year (injuries notwithstanding) because they're underestimating how good the league is. Maryland is currently sitting at #44 in the Pomeroy ratings, and in any other conference they'd be a bubble team. But in this year's Big Ten, they're 12th out of 14. For perspective, here's where the #44 team would have landed over the past 20 years:
2002: 6 of 11
2003: 5 of 11
2004: 4 of 11
2005: 7 of 11
2006: 8 of 11
2007: 7 of 11
2008: 6 of 11
2009: 7 of 11
2010: 6 of 11
2011: 6 of 11
2012: 7 of 12
2013: 9 of 12
2014: 6 of 12
2015: 6 of 14
2016: 7 of 14
2017: 7 of 14
2018: 7 of 14
2019: 8 of 14
2020: 13 of 14
2021: 12 of 14
That Maryland team would be dead center of the league or better in 11 of the 20 years listed above. (What jumps out at me is how difficult the league has been during Underwood's tenure, and how comically bad Groce's teams look in comparison.)
I still think this is a bad loss. I hate that we didn't run a cohesive offense at all, I hate that we couldn't get Kofi looks in the second half, I hate that we didn't finish at the rim, I hate the way that we gave up the winning basket. But this isn't exactly losing to Carmody-era Northwestern, especially when you strip out some of the home court advantage. (I think there's data that actually supports that, but I'm too lazy to dig it up.)
This has been a uniquely difficult conference over the past couple of years. I hope the committee doesn't blush at giving it 11 or 12 bids on Selection Sunday.