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CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - MARCH 11: Cooper Koch #8 and Cam Manyawu #3 of the Iowa Hawkeyes battle with Solomon Washington #9 of the Maryland Terrapins for a rebound in the second half during the second round of the 2026 Big Ten Men's Basketball Tournament at the United Center on March 11, 2026 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images) | Getty Images
For a second, it looked like No. 17-seed Maryland men’s basketball was primed to blow past its lowly postseason expectations.
But No. 9-seed Iowa gathered itself and obliterated the Terps in the second half. When the final buzzer sounded, Maryland’s season ended with a 75-64 loss in the second round of the Big Ten Tournament in Chicago.
Twenty-one losses is the most Maryland has suffered in a season since 1941. Buzz Williams has a lot on his plate in the coming months as he prepares for year two in College Park.
But before moving onto 2026-27, here are three takeaways from the final game of the 2025-26 campaign.
Maryland couldn’t sustain momentum. Iowa did.
Isaiah Watts and Darius Adams may have caused some irrational thoughts from Terps fans in the first half. They were the catalysts of a 15-0 run that brought Maryland all the way out to a 21-10 lead just 11 minutes and 20 seconds into the game.
Watts — who transferred to College Park as a promising shooter but hadn’t produced as such — had three 3-pointers before the break and finished with four, tied for his season-high. Adams was the most efficient he’s been all year, scoring at all three levels en route to nine first-half points, tied with Watts for the lead.
But the momentum didn’t last long. Watts came back down to earth — and Guillermo Del Pino picked the worst possible time to finally show some confidence in his shot.
The Spanish freshman has looked borderline terrified with the ball in his hands for most of the season. But Wednesday, with Maryland looking to maintain the run, Del Pino put up multiple ill-advised 3-pointers from well beyond the arc.
Del Pino went back to the bench after his second miss. Three minutes later, he subbed back in and promptly bricked two more.
That was Del Pino’s last time on the court Wednesday. But it’s worth questioning why he was given the green light to begin with.
When Iowa got hot in the second half, it didn’t make the same mistake. All-Big Ten second team guard Bennett Stirtz extended his team’s scoring run to 12-0 courtesy of back-to-back 3-pointers — the first being a circus shot through contact with the shot clock expiring.
Unlike the Terps, the Hawkeyes didn’t move away from what built the momentum; they expanded off of it. Stirtz demanded multiple defenders driving to the cup — on back-to-back possessions, he fed open teammates to keep things rolling.
When Maryland finally broke out of its slump, the Hawkeyes had mounted a 21-0 run and the game was all but out of hand.
The Terps caught another case of the turnover bug
Playing on 17 hours of rest isn’t easy, physically or mentally. Neither is an 11 a.m. local-time tip-off. Maryland’s effort didn’t go away from Tuesday to Wednesday, but the residual effects of that much basketball in 24 hours started to show.
The Terps’ first possession resulted in an Andre Mills travel. Two minutes later, Diggy Coit lost the ball.
It didn’t matter too much in that moment — Iowa likewise had three early turnovers — but it was a sign of things to come. Once Maryland got out to an 11-point lead, things got sloppy.
Mills and Coit were the catalysts. They combined for five turnovers in the first eight minutes. Maryland had eight giveaways as a team by halftime.
And things didn’t get better with the Hawkeyes running away with victory in the second half. Coit finished with a game-high five turnovers, Mills had four and Adams had three.
The Terps had 10 or fewer turnovers in each of their previous three games entering Wednesday. They had 16 in the season finale.
Mills ran out of gas
The redshirt freshman’s breakout has been the highlight of Maryland’s 2025-26 campaign. Mills averaged 19.3 points per game in the final 11 games of the regular season — inexplicably not enough for a freshman All-Big Ten nod, but enough to generate serious buzz about what his potential could be.
Mills didn’t have a great scoring game against No. 16-seed Oregon in the first round — 12 points on 3-of-13 shooting — but he excelled in a facilitator role at the point.
At one point or another, Mills was due for a stinker. Unfortunately for the Terps, it came in a knockout game, when his production was sorely needed.
Impressive ball movement against the Ducks turned into four turnovers against the Hawkeyes. And for the first time in weeks, Mills couldn’t get any of his shots to fall, at all.
He finished 1-of-13, his least efficient shooting game in Big Ten play all season. Free throws helped pad Mills’ game total to nine points, but that wasn’t nearly enough to turn the tide.
If Maryland’s 2026-27 season is to be a revival year, Mills will need to wipe a 5-of-26 postseason from his memory. He’s unquestionably key to Williams’ future plans.
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