Preview: Maryland matches up with No. 8 Purdue in first true road game of the season

Photo by Maryland Athletics

Maryland men’s basketball (8-1, 1-0 Big Ten) will face its first hostile environment of the 2024-25 season Sunday afternoon when they take on the 8th-ranked Purdue Boilermakers (7-2, 0-1 Big Ten) at Mackey Arena in West Lafayette, Indiana.

The Terps opened conference play with a dominant 83-59 home win Wednesday night against Ohio State, including a 33-point lead at halftime and five players finishing with double figures.

Freshman center Derik Queen was instrumental in the win, logging his third double-double of the season. Junior guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie’s 23 points led all scorers, while Junior forward Tafara Gapare continued his recent stretch of offensive production with 12 ticks off the bench.

The latter two were responsible for the game’s most electric plays. Gapare’s was a booming slam from the baseline in the first half, while Gillespie followed with an ankle-breaking step-back three-pointer later in the half.

Senior big Julian Reese and fifth-year forward Selton Miguel were the other Terps to hit double-digit scoring, each finishing with 10.

Purdue played its first Big Ten game the following night, suffering an 81-70 upset road loss at the hands of Penn State.

The Boilermakers are led by Junior wing Trey Kaufman-Renn, who averages 18.7 points and 6.6 rebounds per game, including a season-high 26 in a win over No. 2 Alabama in mid-November.

The home team has won eleven of the two programs’ 15 all-time meetings. They have met each season since Maryland joined the Big Ten in 2014-15, and Purdue leads the all-time series, 9-6.

Terps fans probably remember the night of Feb. 16, 2023, when the team took down then-3rd-ranked Purdue at XFINITY Center, leading to a court storm from the students. The following season’s rematch saw the No. 1 Boilermakers hand Maryland a 14-point loss, ending the Terps’ 19-game winning streak at home.

Sunday will be the sixth consecutive meeting in which Purdue is ranked and Maryland is not, and the fifth straight with the Boilermakers in the top ten. Maryland’s only win at Mackey Arena came in the first-ever matchup, a 69-60 final in January 2015.

The game is set to tip at noon on Big Ten Network.