B1G Game 18: Gophers Host Maryland (3-1-20)

[wbbaddict]

Whoa, let me bring you back to reality a bit.

I’ll get back to Marlene’s positive contributions in a short sec.

But first we should acknowledge what’s fairly clear to most of us GHers in hindsight: Namely that Stollings was always a short-timer by her own intentions, and was largely using Minnesota as a place to pad her resume in order to move on to a better paying job.

She milked Minnesota’s existing assets to do so: stars like Rachel Banham and Amanda Zahui B. and future stars (perhaps a tiny bit less stellar, but eventual stars just the same) such as Carlie Wagner.

At the same time, she booked cream-puff non-conf schedules that padded her won-loss record, but made it nigh unto impossible to make the NCAA playoffs due to horrible SoS dragging down our RPI.

Even with Rachel Banham and Carlie Wagner, Stollings couldn’t initially coach us to an NCAA playoff game, and she mal-coached us in the ensuing WNIT to a one-and-done for that Rachel Banham led team.

Fast forward to the year you mention, 2017-18, in which we did finally make it to the NCAA playoffs with a team led by Carlie Wagner and Kenisha Bell along with up-and-coming Destiny Pitts. You describe that team thusly ...

> ... that 2nd Round NCAA Tournament / Top-25 Caliber team ... (and) ... at least the Gophers won an NCAA Tournament game ...

That was not a Top-25 team. Recall we had the Bubble Party that year, and up to the last minute we weren’t sure whether the NCAA considered us a top-64 team. But they did, and we beat Green Bay, so perhaps we were a top-32 team. But then we had to play Oregon, and they were way better than us, although we held our own for a while. That year’s Gophers were a good team, but not a ranked team.

That was the last year Marlene hitched her wagon to a star left over from the pre-Stollings era - namely Carlie Wagner. Then Marlene jumped ship - to the delight of many GH posters. And Whalen took over the reigns the following year. Carlie Wagner had graduated. Carlie left behind a good team, but not an elite team.

Whalen did not “take over a Top-25 Caliber team and turn them into one of the worst teams in the Big Ten.” It’s largely a different team that Whalen took over.

To Stollings credit, she did bring in some good talent. I think she brought in Kenisha Bell (although I’m not certain). She brought in Jasmine Brunson and Gadiva Hubbard. She brought in the first wave of Michiganders, namely Destiny Pitts and the Bellos. And these were all good recruits - all developing into very good players. In particular, Bell and Pitts and Taiye Bello were all ultimately nominated as candidates for national awards for their positions.

Although Stollings spiffed up her resume in advance of job hunting, largely on the basis of star power left over from Pam Borton, Whalen needed to build on top of Stollings’ recruits. This takes time. In particular, we’ve been short-handed from day one on Whalen’s teams. We naturally lost a couple recruits with the coaching change, and it was not possible to hustle fast enough to replace them all. Plus Hubbard was injured last year. And two of this year’s recruits were injured from the get go, and another having to sit out a year per NCAA. Plus more miscellaneous injuries during the season. And the unfortunate loss of Pitts - our star player - to bad management by the Athletic Department.

Whalen has been playing with 3/4 of a decent team ... not with 100% of a top-25 AP ranked team. Teams have been killing us all year because our team is exhausted playing a 7-player rotation. Plus we have one great post in a league that now requires 3 great posts (2 starters and 1 backup).

On Sunday, Whalen had to play her 3/4 of a pretty good team with too-few posts against a 13-player (and 15-staffed) 7th-ranked basketball team, namely Maryland

Give her a break. Let’s let her recruit a full team first, rather than judge her on how well her exhausted 3/4 team stands up to a possible Final Four team.

You hit the nail on the head!

 

[Ignatius L Hoops]

Whoa, let me bring you back to reality a bit.

I’ll get back to Marlene’s positive contributions in a short sec.

But first we should acknowledge what’s fairly clear to most of us GHers in hindsight: Namely that Stollings was always a short-timer by her own intentions, and was largely using Minnesota as a place to pad her resume in order to move on to a better paying job.

Not entirely "by her own intentions". I don't think Coyle was about to offer her a five year extension, let alone match what Texas Tech was going to offer. Plus, she had to know Coyle was having dinner with Lindsay about Lindsay's future. There was more than a little wall writing for Marlene to ponder.

The caveat: I don't really know when Texas Tech started talking to Marlene about the job. Their search was a long one.

You should also include Shea Kelly on your list of "positive contributions" as a player whom came to Minnesota because of Stollings. Kelly had a terrific season including almost single handedly defeating Ohio State in Columbus with 29 points and 18 rebounds.

 

[bball_craz_31]

So we giving her credit for who she recruited. Then your ok with her dividing the gap of in-state recruiting even further? Borton started the fire (stop giving her credit for Banham and Wagner, each were always wanting to be gophers and had ties or connections to the U outside of Borton) and Stollings Danced on the ashes of in-state recruiting from Borton's fire. Bell came back for her own reasons not for Stollings.

Kelley came here not due to Stollings but because she wanted a chance at WNBA and knew that wasn't going to get that or at least as strong of a case as a mid-major. She pegged Minnesota with Zahui and Banham sitting here.

Her best recruits were Pitts, Hubbard, Brunson and Bellos. once again NO MINNESOTA kids for 4 seasons.

Not entirely "by her own intentions". I don't think Coyle was about to offer her a five year extension, let alone match what Texas Tech was going to offer. Plus, she had to know Coyle was having dinner with Lindsay about Lindsay's future. There was more than a little wall writing for Marlene to ponder.

The caveat: I don't really know when Texas Tech started talking to Marlene about the job. Their search was a long one.

You should also include Shea Kelly on your list of "positive contributions" as a player whom came to Minnesota because of Stollings. Kelly had a terrific season including almost single handedly defeating Ohio State in Columbus with 29 points and 18 rebounds.

 

[bbwannabe]

Whoa, let me bring you back to reality a bit.

I’ll get back to Marlene’s positive contributions in a short sec.

But first we should acknowledge what’s fairly clear to most of us GHers in hindsight: Namely that Stollings was always a short-timer by her own intentions, and was largely using Minnesota as a place to pad her resume in order to move on to a better paying job.

She milked Minnesota’s existing assets to do so: stars like Rachel Banham and Amanda Zahui B. and future stars (perhaps a tiny bit less stellar, but eventual stars just the same) such as Carlie Wagner.

At the same time, she booked cream-puff non-conf schedules that padded her won-loss record, but made it nigh unto impossible to make the NCAA playoffs due to horrible SoS dragging down our RPI.

Even with Rachel Banham and Carlie Wagner, Stollings couldn’t initially coach us to an NCAA playoff game, and she mal-coached us in the ensuing WNIT to a one-and-done for that Rachel Banham led team.

Fast forward to the year you mention, 2017-18, in which we did finally make it to the NCAA playoffs with a team led by Carlie Wagner and Kenisha Bell along with up-and-coming Destiny Pitts. You describe that team thusly ...

> ... that 2nd Round NCAA Tournament / Top-25 Caliber team ... (and) ... at least the Gophers won an NCAA Tournament game ...

That was not a Top-25 team. Recall we had the Bubble Party that year, and up to the last minute we weren’t sure whether the NCAA considered us a top-64 team. But they did, and we beat Green Bay, so perhaps we were a top-32 team. But then we had to play Oregon, and they were way better than us, although we held our own for a while. That year’s Gophers were a good team, but not a ranked team.

That was the last year Marlene hitched her wagon to a star left over from the pre-Stollings era - namely Carlie Wagner. Then Marlene jumped ship - to the delight of many GH posters. And Whalen took over the reigns the following year. Carlie Wagner had graduated. Carlie left behind a good team, but not an elite team.

Whalen did not “take over a Top-25 Caliber team and turn them into one of the worst teams in the Big Ten.” It’s largely a different team that Whalen took over.

To Stollings credit, she did bring in some good talent. I think she brought in Kenisha Bell (although I’m not certain). She brought in Jasmine Brunson and Gadiva Hubbard. She brought in the first wave of Michiganders, namely Destiny Pitts and the Bellos. And these were all good recruits - all developing into very good players. In particular, Bell and Pitts and Taiye Bello were all ultimately nominated as candidates for national awards for their positions.

Although Stollings spiffed up her resume in advance of job hunting, largely on the basis of star power left over from Pam Borton, Whalen needed to build on top of Stollings’ recruits. This takes time. In particular, we’ve been short-handed from day one on Whalen’s teams. We naturally lost a couple recruits with the coaching change, and it was not possible to hustle fast enough to replace them all. Plus Hubbard was injured last year. And two of this year’s recruits were injured from the get go, and another having to sit out a year per NCAA. Plus more miscellaneous injuries during the season. And the unfortunate loss of Pitts - our star player - to bad management by the Athletic Department.

Whalen has been playing with 3/4 of a decent team ... not with 100% of a top-25 AP ranked team. Teams have been killing us all year because our team is exhausted playing a 7-player rotation. Plus we have one great post in a league that now requires 3 great posts (2 starters and 1 backup).

On Sunday, Whalen had to play her 3/4 of a pretty good team with too-few posts against a 13-player (and 15-staffed) 7th-ranked basketball team, namely Maryland

Give her a break. Let’s let her recruit a full team first, rather than judge her on how well her exhausted 3/4 team stands up to a possible Final Four team.

Thank you.....

 

[CutDownTheNet]

So we giving her credit for who she recruited. Then your ok with her dividing the gap of in-state recruiting even further? Borton started the fire (stop giving her credit for Banham and Wagner, each were always wanting to be gophers and had ties or connections to the U outside of Borton) and Stollings Danced on the ashes of in-state recruiting from Borton's fire. Bell came back for her own reasons not for Stollings.

Kelley came here not due to Stollings but because she wanted a chance at WNBA and knew that wasn't going to get that or at least as strong of a case as a mid-major. She pegged Minnesota with Zahui and Banham sitting here.

Her best recruits were Pitts, Hubbard, Brunson and Bellos. once again NO MINNESOTA kids for 4 seasons.

All good points. And Shea Kelley played for the Lynx.

I acknowledge Stollings left a lot to be desired in terms of *not* going after in-state players, and that her best recruits were out-of-state. I wasn’t focusing on that part, just pointing out that she did bring in at least some good talent. (For instance, without Taiye Bello, we would have been in a much bigger world of hurt this year than we actually were, and probably would have lost to Maryland by 33-99. Sometimes what-ifs are instructive.) But thanks all for the additional comments that are relevant.

Whalen’s recruits are a good mix of Minnesota talent and national/international talent. I think that’s a good strategy. We get recruits like Scalia and Powell (both way better than anybody ranked them) and unknowns like Masha (actually our best three-point shooter by the numbers, last time I checked, and wish we could keep her 2 years instead of 1).

It’s perhaps going to be a challenge replacing quality players like Brunson (did you know last time I checked she was leading the Big Ten in free-throw percentage?), Big Mash, Taiye Bello (the world’s most persistent rebounder), and Destiny Pitts (a leading candidate for a national SG award right up until she left), while at the same time finding someone who can go up against the likes of Shakira Austin. But one positive for recruiting with the Whalen team, is that they leave no stone unturned.

 

[Shades]

Powell would have never came to Minnesota if Pitts wasn’t here first. So Stollings gets my credit for bringing Powell here. That’s a far more believable notion than “Kelley came here for Banham and Zahui. Stollings has nothing to do with it.” I doubt Kelley knew of either of these players. Stollings had to sell her on coming to Minnesota, just like she has to with any other recruit.

 

[bball_craz_31]

you're so connected and know everything don't you talk to her? cause in my conversations on the situation, she didn't like Stollings or Dawkins and had to be talked into giving them a chance. She had heard about them from playing in the same conference as them and it wasn't positive.

Powell wasn't offered by stollings, was offered by Whalen, Stollings had seen her plenty while watching Pitts and didn't offer so no, that recruit doesn't go to Stollings. have to actually offer a kid before you get credit for the recruit.

Also Scalia was helped to be recruited by Pitts, even saw pitts talking to her at the state tournament last year and was the person to show her around on her visit. Should that one also go to stollings?

Powell would have never came to Minnesota if Pitts wasn’t here first. So Stollings gets my credit for bringing Powell here. That’s a far more believable notion than “Kelley came here for Banham and Zahui. Stollings has nothing to do with it.” I doubt Kelley knew of either of these players. Stollings had to sell her on coming to Minnesota, just like she has to with any other recruit.

 

[Shades]

Also Scalia was helped to be recruited by Pitts, even saw pitts talking to her at the state tournament last year and was the person to show her around on her visit. Should that one also go to Stollings?

There’s a big difference between being a high school teammate of a player and being assigned by Whalen to warm up to Scalia... if Scalia even needed warming up.

What are the odds of Powell coming to Minnesota if Pitts didn’t come here first? Are you educated enough to figure out those odds? I done think so.

 

[Ignatius L Hoops]

So we giving her credit for who she recruited. Then your ok with her dividing the gap of in-state recruiting even further? Borton started the fire (stop giving her credit for Banham and Wagner, each were always wanting to be gophers and had ties or connections to the U outside of Borton) and Stollings Danced on the ashes of in-state recruiting from Borton's fire. Bell came back for her own reasons not for Stollings.

Kelley came here not due to Stollings but because she wanted a chance at WNBA and knew that wasn't going to get that or at least as strong of a case as a mid-major. She pegged Minnesota with Zahui and Banham sitting here.

Her best recruits were Pitts, Hubbard, Brunson and Bellos. once again NO MINNESOTA kids for 4 seasons.

I remember an article saying Kelley (Old Dominion) played against Stollings' team (VCU) and was impressed with their style of play and that playing style entered into her decision. Which is kind of what recruiting is. Anyway, Kelley was a near perfect fit.

 

[BBJones]

I remember reading that article also.

 

[bball_craz_31]

I remember an article saying Kelley (Old Dominion) played against Stollings' team (VCU) and was impressed with their style of play and that playing style entered into her decision. Which is kind of what recruiting is. Anyway, Kelley was a near perfect fit.

From what I heard she had to be talked into dealing with Stollings and Dawkins... more so Dawkins than Stollings but still. and she was a perfect fit because Marlene had no interest in playing Kayla Hirt.

also if whalen scared off pitts, then Stollings should be credited with scaring off Zahui who left with eligibility left cause she hated Marlene

 

[bball_craz_31]

There’s a big difference between being a high school teammate of a player and being assigned by Whalen to warm up to Scalia... if Scalia even needed warming up.

What are the odds of Powell coming to Minnesota if Pitts didn’t come here first? Are you educated enough to figure out those odds? I done think so.

So was she going to come here and pay her way as a walk-on? Stollings didn't offer her. where do you give credit to Stollings for her?

and yes I know you are soo perfect that haven't hit the wrong button on your phone.... careful its a long fall from that high horse you sit on

 

[CutDownTheNet]

Here's some additional interesting statistics about Minnesota + Maryland that go beyond the normal basketball game metrics. Some of the stats are about their respective Big-Ten seasons. But we start with a comparison of their relative physical height.

I computed the weighted average height of the two teams - weighted by the playing time of each player. Each team played nine players. The Gophers utilized all their posts for at least some minutes, and thus had 4 players over six feet and 5 players under six feet tall. Of Maryland's nine players, only 2 were under six feet and 7 were over six feet tall.

The average result is that the Maryland team (as fielded with weighting by time played) was 2.95 inches taller, on average, than the Minnesota team (as fielded). In other words, as a team, Maryland is almost three inches taller than Minnesota. The average Maryland player is a bit over 6'1" tall. The average Minnesota player is about 5'10" plus a smidgeon.

It was even worse when Shakira Austin was playing - in which case, since not always guarded by our post, we often had a 5'10"-ish player guarding the 6'5" Maryland center - thus giving up about 7 inches of height difference. She was able to make "Shak-like" back-down post moves and make easy layups (five of them) while drawing fouls (four of them) for a total of 13 points in about two quarters playing time. That's about 0.63 points per (Shakira Austin) player-minute - for which we had no answer, really (putting Taiye on her would likely get her enough fouls to foul out, so that we're better off just giving up the points, honestly).

By comparison, the Minnesota team averaged 0.22 points per player-minute. In other words, Austin is just reaching over our heads and grabbing rebounds plus putting in layups and free throws at almost three times the point-production efficiency of the Gophers, as a team. Our most efficient point producer was Sara Scalia at 0.289 points per player-minute.

The other Maryland players that had similar point-production efficiency were Ashley Owusu at 0.67 points per player-minute (over 25+ minutes), and Taylor Mikesell at 0.724 points per player-minute (over 30+ minutes). These are roughly (but not quite) composable, so that under the hypothetical that Maryland had played those three players for the full 40 minutes, the trio would have scored almost 81 points by themselves (not counting any points by the other two players). In reality, the trio contributed 52 points and the other 6 Terps contributed 47 points. The upshot: they could have gone well over 100 points if they gave more minutes to Mikesell, Owusu and Austin,

Our lack of point production was due to a combination of low field-goal percentage plus lack of shooting opportunities. Our guards could not launch very many three-point shots, and when they did it was seldom a wide-open shot, because it's hard to shoot a set shot over someone three inches taller than you. The three-inch height deficit for-sure contributed to our low field-goal percentage. And we couldn't stop their tall posts from scoring.

Let's switch gears and look at the respective Big-Ten seasons of Maryland and MInnesota. The first two charts below show the Minnesota scoring deltas (Minnesota score minus opponent score) for the Big-Ten regular season, except the Maryland game, and then for the full 18-game regular Big-Ten season.





The reason for the separate charts is to show what our Big-Ten season looks like both with and without the Maryland game. There is a slight negative correlation of -0.346 between the scoring deltas and the fraction of the Big-Ten season completed. What this means is that we were slightly worse toward the end of the season than at the beginning. The trend-line is that our quality of play generally trended downward over the course of the Big-Ten season. The 4th data point is the Northwestern game, which was Destiny Pitts' last game. The fact that our results trended downward after that 4th game could be construed as evidence that we weren't as good without Pitts as we were with Pitts. Or it might just indicate that the team was getting frustrated and depressed by losing all the time. Or both.

When we add the final Maryland loss, that skews the data with what seems like somewhat of an outlier point, and also increases the negative correlation to -0.508. The huge number of turnovers definitely made this Maryland game a worse loss than it otherwise would have been - and thus it was an outlier in some sense. Certainly, if you imagine the trend-line before the Maryland game, the Maryland loss was a lot worse than where the trend-line would have put it. (Note: I didn't do a linear regression because it's fairly easy to eyeball the results and imagine what the trend-line woud be.)

Now let's look at the Maryland trend-line over time, as shown by the Maryland scoring deltas (Maryland score minus opponent score) in sequential order of the 18-game Big-Ten season.



Maryland definitely has the opposite trend - namely trending toward better performance over time, as the Big-Ten season progresses. You can easily see this visually, but it is also proven statistically by means of the positive +0.770 correlation between Maryland scoring delta and fraction of the Big-Ten season played thus far (as indicated by the game number on the X axis). Maryland's only two Big-Ten losses were in the early season, against the (eventual) #2 and #3 ranked Big-Ten teams - namely to Northwestern (game #2) by 23 points, and to Iowa (game #4) by 5 points. The initial 15-point win over Michigan plus the 23-point loss to Northwestern help anchor the origin of the trend-line at about -4 points (averaging the two).

All the remaining games were Maryland victories, with margin of victory generaly varying by strength of opponent. But also note that (regardless of opponent) there is a definite trend toward increasing margins of victory over time. This essentially corresponds to Maryland getting better as a team over time. At the same time, they were rising in the AP Poll. Just Minnesota's luck, we had to get them last when they are (apparently) at their peak.

As you scan to the right, you'll see that the average Maryland scoring delta gradually increases over the course of the season, so that by the last game (against us) their average win margin (according to the trend-line) is perhaps about 46 points. So, subtracting the initial average scoring delta of -4 from the final average scoring delta of +46, we get that Maryland's average scoring delta rose about 50 points over the full Big-Ten season. This is pretty much confirmed by the following: In their first four games they scored {70, 58, 72, 61} points, but in their last four games they scored {106, 85, 88, 99} points. That is, in their first four games they scored an average of 65.25 points, but in their last four games they scored an average of 94.5 points, a difference of 29.25 points.

This does not account for the full 46-point average win-margin at the end of the season, for two reasons. First, because we grouped 4 data points at each end (so that the 4-datapoint average is not representative of the endpoints). Second, part of the increased win margin comes from better Maryland defense, such that opponents score less (example - Minnesota: 44 points) while Maryland scores more. In other words, they simply got better and better, on both their offense and defense, as the season wore on.

That last Maryland data point is, of course, against us - their 55-point win. Now I'm not going to make apologies for our rather bad play, but I can make explanatory comments that our porous defense plus our 35 turnovers plus our poor shooting were certainly factors that helped make the magnitude of the Maryland win over Minnesota be on the high side of the trend-line. Nevertheless, if you look at Maryland games 13-15 and 17 (skipping 16 and our game) you get a mini end-of-season linear trend-line that is what we used to project the height of the trend-line at end-of-season, namely about +46 points of scoring delta.

That gives us the amazing approximate conjecture that Maryland would have beaten the last team it played in the Big Ten by about 46 points in any event; and so our 55-point loss was only 9 points worse than what we should have expected Maryland to do against an average Big-Ten team at end of season. Maryland just got that good by the end of the season. Heck, if we'd have played them at the beginning of the season when we still had Destiny Pitts, we might even have had a chance to beat them, with a little luck.

But over the course of the Big-Ten season, Maryland has made itself into a Final-Four caliber team. They beat the crap out of us, mainly just to prove to themselves that they will have clear sailing through the NCAA Tournament as far as, perhaps, the Semi-Final game.

Again, we're not letting the Gophers off the hook for stumbling so badly against Maryland. But as it turns out, every other team (except Indiana) who played Maryland late in the season, stumbled quite badly as well. Third-place Iowa lost by 34 points. Bubble team Purdue lost by 43 points. Michigan State lost by 41 points.

As Whalen noted on the Gopher Coaches Show regarding the Maryland game, "That wasn't our team" - meaning not that she was disowning them, but that on that day the Gopher team just didn't play like we taught them, or play up to their normal standard. She thought they were a bit "shell shocked" by how good Maryland was. Shocked enough that they pretty much lost all their composure and made mistake after mistake.

Now I don't know if any of this goes very far to lessen the sting of this loss (which we're stuck with on the record books). I'm just putting forth this detailed data to second the point already made by others, namely that we're in good company losing by bucket-loads to Maryland - at the end of the Big-Ten season.

Another interesting point: Although Brenda Frese annoys the crap out if me, I suppose you have to give some credit to her 15-member staff for teaching her tesm and improving their skills over the course of the Big-Ten season. Perhaps part of that is due to having a bigger staff at her service. Maryland commits $$$ to women’s basketball.

For the Gophers, it seemed like the team improved over non-conf play to be the team it needed to be to win non-conf games; but took that non-conf skill-set into the Big Ten and tried to use it as is with little adjustment (whereas a lot of adjustment was actually needed). I think that largely boils down to not having sufficient player headcount nor sufficient playet height to compete adequately in the Big Ten.

One last graph, and it's a bit of a tricky one. What I did is separately sort all of the Minnesota scoring deltas and Maryland scoring deltas in increasing order by magnitude - that is, starting from the worst loss (-55 for Minnesota and -23 for Maryland) and ending with the best win (+13 for Minnesota and +55 for Maryland). Then I subtracted the Minnesota Points Delta column from the Maryland Points Delta column - giving an estimator of how much better Maryland is relative to Minnesota. That graph is shown here ...



For the ten lowest-delta games, Maryland averages about a 25-point higher scoring delta than Minnesota. Then for the other eight games, the quality difference between Minnesota and Maryland diverges further apart - ending at a +42 (between Maryland's 55-point win over us minus our 13-point win over Purdue). Note this is not a temporal trend-line like the earlier charts, since the data points were scrambled by sorting them. Nevertheless, since we already know that Maryland played much better towards the end of the season, and Minnesota played slightly better in the beginning of the season, it's a pretty good guess that most of those right-hand eight (higher) data points are from late-season Maryland game deltas minus some Minnesota game deltas.

That being the case, this chart also graphically shows how Maryland played better in most of its late-season games. But (since we already knew that), the more important observation from this graph is that across the whole season, Maryland ranges from 20 to 42 points better than Minnesota (after normalizing against the full 14 Big-Ten teams), if we compare worst-games to worst-games and best-games to best-games. Interestingly, this relatively flat relationship (except for Maryland's improvement toward the end of the season) holds across the wide range spanning from Minnesota's worst points-delta of -55 to Maryland's best points-delta of +55.

You could summarize by saying that Maryland is at least a 20-point better team than us (in early season), trending to even better yet by the end of the season. Add the fact that we played them last (when they were the best), plus the Maryland 3-inch height advantage, plus our shell-shocked factor, and there you have it - a 55-point loss to Maryland. Not very fun, but we're in good company of other good Big-Ten teams losing to Maryland by crazy margins.