Maryland basketball: 5 questions the Terps must answer in 2020-2021

No. 1 Will Maryland basketball be able to overcome what they lost?

The 2020-21 Maryland basketball team’s inaugural season without Cowan Jr. and Smith is going to be tough. They may surprise a lot of people, do really well in the Big Ten next year and earn an NCAA Tournament bid.

Cowan Jr. was the closer for Maryland during many games last season when they were down against quality opponents. With Smith on to the NBA, they’re now missing a double-double machine who was a real asset defensively and on the perimeter. With no stars on the team, any player can have a good game or string of games that result in victories for the team.

In Maryland’s 52-48 loss to the Seton Hall Pirates without Myles Powell, the Pirates played as one team and upset the Terps. Without Powell, the Pirates had a different mindset. On the outside, people probably thought the Terps would run away with that matchup and that wasn’t the case. The Pirates were the underdog and they rose to the occasion. In 2020, The Terps likely won’t be ranked in the preseason AP Top 25 and the Big Ten preseason rankings won’t be kind to them either.

They’ll have even more to prove. Maryland basketball fans should be excited about the potential of Marial now that he has an offseason under his belt with the team despite the extenuating circumstance of COVID-19. He was a fan favorite last season and showed promise in his limited role coming off of surgery on his legs. Alabama transfer Galin Smith is a guy to watch out for as well. He didn’t play a lot of minutes during his time there so this could be an opportunity for him to show what he’s made of also.

Even though the Terps have a solid nucleus of players in place, it’s hard to say whether they remain atop the Big Ten next year. A lot of teams got better in the offseason and they, through roster subtractions and misses on the recruiting trail, got worse.

When it’s all said and done, if the Terps could finish in the single-bye group for the Big Ten Tournament, I would consider that a successful transition period post-Cowan and Jalen Smith. In the NCAA Tournament, a round of 32 birth and exit is where I predict they will end up. As Maryland alumni, I hope I’m wrong and they go further.

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