Maryland gets its next crack at Georgetown on Saturday night, and this time the Terps are preparing for a Hoyas team that looks nothing like the one that left Xfinity Center with a 10-point win a year ago.
That loss came in the first real test for Maryland’s new coaching staff and served as an ugly early marker in what became a historically bad regular season. Now, with the four-year series rolling on, Buzz Williams is treating this matchup as a different challenge entirely.
“[Jaland Lowe] wasn’t on their team last year, much more prominent role,” Williams said of the Hoyas. “[Elmarko Jackson] wasn’t on their team, [Kayvaun Mulready] is a year older, [Josiah Parker] is even more effective than he was last year.
I think [Chol Machot] is sneaky good. So relative to their personnel, completely different.”
The biggest name on Maryland’s scouting report may be Lowe, the Kentucky transfer who steps in as Georgetown’s starting point guard and gives Ed Cooley’s group a different kind of punch.
Williams said Lowe makes the Hoyas “much more of a scorer,” and called Georgetown a “much different team, much better team.” Lowe is one of five incoming transfers, and he enters Saturday as a central figure in how Maryland has to defend.
The other major problem is down low. Vince Iwuchukwu, the 7-foot-1 big man, picked up right where he ended last season and opened the regular season with a near double-double. For Maryland’s frontcourt, led by Pharrel Payne and Tomislav Buljan, that means a serious test in the paint.
“From a defensive standpoint, he’s borderline elite. Incredible rim protection,” Williams said of Iwuchukwu.
“His defensive rebound percentage is very, very high and he does a great job on the offensive glass as well. I think he’s much more comfortable with the ball in his hands no matter whether he’s catching it off a roll or catching it off a post feed than he was last year.
I think the attention that he commands makes you have to make a decision on how you're going to handle those touches.”
For Maryland, though, the focus is less on Georgetown’s makeover and more on what this game can reveal about the Terps themselves. George Turkson Jr. called it “definitely an early test,” and said the kind of matchup Maryland wants is exactly the kind in front of it now.
“We want these types of games,” Turkson said. “It’s just going to reveal where we’re at right now.
And honestly it’s a great game coming out of a great win. You want to have these battles, you want to have these tests heading into a deep season.”
Turkson also pointed to improved chemistry as one of the biggest differences between Maryland’s first year under the new staff and the second. But with Georgetown on the other side and last year’s result still fresh, he made clear the Terps are not treating this like just another nonconference game.
“Especially because it was a close loss last year and it’s also a rivalry,” Turkson added. “There’s a lot of history behind Georgetown and Maryland so I definitely think it’s something that we’re going to take personal, especially because we lost last year.”
In Other News...
Maryland Gets An Early Road Test Fans Cant Ignore
Marylands early-season road trip to Georgetown comes with a little more edge than a typical nonconference date. The programs have barely seen each other over the past 45 years, but they are back on the schedule as part of a four-game series, and both sides arrive looking very different than they did a year ago after major roster turnover through the transfer portal.
For Buzz Williams, the matchup offers an immediate measuring stick for a team still taking shape, with Andre Mills among the new faces expected to matter. Georgetown, under Ed Cooley, has its own fresh look and a familiar challenge in Jaland Lowe, and the game carries the feel of a series that is only just starting to build some history after last seasons meeting. [Read more 🡒]
Utah Just Landed A Coveted Guard Recruit Fans Should Notice
A highly regarded point guard with Maryland ties is off the board, and the Terps will have to watch Jamaal McKnight Jr. take his next step somewhere else. The four-star senior from Iowa United Prep has committed to Utah after building a rsum that included stops at DeMatha Catholic and Long Island Lutheran, two programs that helped put him on the radar of major Division I schools.
McKnight drew interest from several programs before making his choice, a reminder of how wide the recruiting reach can be for a guard with his background and profile. For Maryland fans, the connection is obvious, and the miss stings a little more because this is the kind of local talent the Terps have long tried to keep in the region. [Read more 🡒]
Maryland Has A Clear Edge Against Georgetown If One Battle Swings
Marylands early-season matchup with Georgetown comes with the kind of edge the Terps usually like: a chance to make life difficult with defense, pace and pressure on the glass. The Hoyas have already shown they can lean on transfer guard Donald Carey Lowe to carry the offense, but the bigger question for this game is whether Georgetown can survive long enough inside to keep Maryland from turning missed shots and loose possessions into a run.
The frontcourt matchup looms especially large because Georgetown does not have much margin for error up front, while Maryland has the sort of rebounding and turnover advantages that can tilt a game before the scoring even settles in. If the Terps control the paint and force the Hoyas into uncomfortable possessions, the rest of the matchup starts to look a lot less even, which is why this one may come down to a single battle more than the broader talent gap. [Read more 🡒]