I saw Maryland this year as, like, a bubble team at best, and credit to Willard, he's had them playing *really* well so far. I know their analytics were a little inflated by the way they absolutely smoked Saint Louis and Miami, but they were looking like a Top 6 seed kinda squad. Even the effort against Tennessee neutral court-- a Tennessee team I think will firmly be in the 1 seed hunt-- like, losing that game by that thin a margin is still pretty impressive to me.

But yeah, this loss sorta cancels out the analytical bump they'd gotten from the big wins. Currently post-UCLA game at 26 on KenPom, 35 on the NET-- still honestly better than I expected, but considering I thought 8 or 9 seed was kinda their cap, it's more within the range I'd have imagined than the top 20 consideration they were getting.

That said, think the Terps should still be pretty pleased with Willard. Picked 10th in the conference preseason, now projected by predictive services to finish 7th... they're over performing expectations coming into the year imo (non-fan expectations at least, not sure what the temperature is in College Park anyway, lol).