Reasonable people can disagree on this next point, and provide other equally valid answers to the question, but for me, no Big Ten program magnifies Wisconsin’s achievements in the 21st century more than the Maryland Terrapins.
Michigan State, Michigan, and Ohio State have generally been very successful this century, alongside Wisconsin. Those have been the four best programs in the conference this century. Purdue hasn’t made a Final Four, but the Boilermakers have been fairly consistent and made several Sweet 16s. Purdue isn’t failing to field a strong program; the Boilermakers simply haven’t reached their ultimate goal. There is a difference between those two realities. That is the five-team top tier of the Big Ten in the 21st century.
In the bottom tier of the Big Ten, we have Rutgers, Penn State, Nebraska, Northwestern, and Illinois, programs which have been dormant or close to it for large portions of the 2010s and the century at large. In the middle tier, we have Minnesota, Indiana, Iowa, and Maryland, programs which struggle with consistency. They occasionally poke their nose into the NCAA Tournament but don’t string together strong seasons for the most part.
In this middle tier of the Big Ten in the 21st century, Maryland and Indiana are the two programs which should be a lot better than they actually have been. Neither program has gotten past the Sweet 16 since the two schools played for the 2002 national championship in Atlanta. Why do I say that Maryland’s failures magnify Wisconsin’s achievements more than Indiana’s shortcomings? Indiana had its great coach, the man who would have returned IU to the top… but Kelvin Sampson ran afoul of the NCAA. With Maryland, the Terrapins have a coach who, on paper, SHOULD be thriving in the Big Ten, but he hasn’t.
The big question facing Maryland in the 2020s is if Mark Turgeon can finally live up to his promise and potential as a college basketball coach. Turgeon, on paper, has all the characteristics of a great coach in the making. He thrived at a mid-major program, Wichita State. He thrived at a football-school program in the Power Five, Texas A&M. He is a Larry Brown protege, coming from one of college basketball’s best coaching trees. He made the leap to a basketball school with a proud tradition near a fertile recruiting center, the Beltway corridor in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore. Yet, Maryland has never truly taken off in eight seasons under Turgeon.
The Terps have been a top-four seed only once under Turgeon. They have made the Sweet 16 once. The standards established by Lefty Driesell and then Gary Williams have not been matched by Turgeon — not even close. Moreover, with Maryland losing a pair of games in recent weeks and needing a huge rally to survive Illinois at home, it seems the Terrapins are once again in line to fall short of massive preseason expectations.
When Maryland was a No. 5 seed in 2016, the Terrapins were ranked as high as No. 2 in the Associated Press poll. The No. 4 seed in 2015 was ranked as high as No. 8 in the polls. This 2019-2020 team was as high as No. 3. It just doesn’t seem to be happening for Turgeon, and so as the 2020s arrive, one has to wonder if Maryland will eventually put all the pieces together. I’m not referring to a Final Four berth — not primarily. I am referring to the ability of Maryland to regularly be a top-three seed in the NCAA Tournament and collect a large number of Sweet 16s. That is where the Terps should be. From that volume of Sweet 16s and high seeds should come a Final Four at some point, but first, Mark Turgeon needs to cultivate that level of consistency in College Park.
