Maryland @ Florida Preview
Chase Center
Last Meeting ( Dec 12, 2021 ) Florida 68, Maryland 70
SAN FRANCISCO -- Florida's Todd Golden hopes a visit to his old coaching grounds will be just a brief stopover on the Gators' way back to the center of the college basketball stage. Meanwhile, Maryland hero Derik Queen makes the trip to the West Coast with the opportunity to grow his profile on a national stage.
Those two forces come together Thursday night, when the top-seeded Gators (32-4) face the No. 4 Terrapins (27-8) in an NCAA Tournament West Region semifinal at Chase Center.
Golden was the head coach at the University of San Francisco from 2019 to 2022. In his final season there, the Dons won 22 games and qualified for the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 24 seasons.
"It's kind of icing on the cake to be able to go out there," Golden told the Gainesville Sun. He added that seeing "a lot of friends and family and people that will kind of support our program as adopting the Gators out west will be awesome."
More awesome for the Gators would be a pair of victories vaulting them to their first Final Four since 2014. They have not had a longer stretch without reaching college basketball's final weekend since their first appearance in 1994.
"The time was now for us to take that next step," Golden said Sunday after Florida eliminated two-time defending champion UConn 77-75 in the second round in Raleigh, N.C. "Being in the Sweet 16 is a great step in the right direction.
To get there, the Gators will lean heavily as usual on Walter Clayton Jr., the team's leader in scoring (17.9 ppg) and assists (4.2). Clayton scored 23 points against the Huskies, including 13 in the final eight minutes. He made two crucial 3-pointers down the stretch.
"My teammates, like I said, they give me the ball and put trust in me to be able to shoot those shots," he said.
Maryland's trust in Queen, a true freshman who was the Big Ten Freshman of the Year and is projected as an NBA lottery pick in June, only heightened after he demanded the ball on the Terrapins' final possession, then put in a nearly impossible fadeaway bank shot from the far left wing to beat No. 12 Colorado State 72-71 on Sunday.
Terrapins coach Kevin Willard said Queen's personality is just as important to his group as his numbers -- 16.2 points and 9.1 rebounds per game, both team highs.
"He has an infectious personality," Willard told The Athletic. "He's never in a bad mood, always smiling. Every time you walk away from him, you're like, that's the best kid in the world. You just want to give him a hug."
Hugs will be widespread with a Maryland victory. The Terrapins have not been to the Elite Eight since 2002, the season of their only national championship. They are in the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2016.
"It's very rare nowadays, where these kids have this unbelievable pressure, but he's just always in a good mood, always a great teammate," Willard continued. "He's a generational talent and a generational kid, and you just don't see that (combo) very often."
Make no mistake, though. Queen can be as forceful with his teammates as he can be with his opponents when the needs arise. With Maryland down a point and the game on the line, Queen demanded to Willard in the huddle that he "give me the mother (bleep) ball."
Willard does have other options. The starting group (dubbed the "Crab Five" as a play on Michigan's "Fab Five" freshman of the early 1990s and Maryland's famous sea-food dish) have started every Maryland game since Nov. 19. All five -- Queen, Ja'Kobi Gillespie (14.6), Rodney Rice (13.9), Julian Reese (13.3) and Selton Miguel (12.0) -- average double-figures in scoring.
--Field Level Media