The ACC-Big Ten Challenge started Monday with the conferences' perennial bottom-feeders, Florida State and Northwestern, playing each other. Tonight, the real action gets underway as the Wisconsin Badgers men's basketball team (3-0) heads east to face the Maryland Terrapins (3-0) at the Comcast Center in College Park, Md. in one of tonight's four matchups.
This year marks the fifth installment of the challenge, with the ACC having won the previous four Commissioners Cups. Maryland is 2-2 all-time in the challenge, while the Badgers have struggled, posting just one win, an upset over the Terps in 2000. While some coaches have criticized the challenge, UW Head Coach Bo Ryan has no problem with it.
\It's a good contest, good competition, tough environment that we're gonna go into, so, I welcome it,"" Ryan said.
Since that 2000 upset, Wisconsin and Maryland have crossed paths only once. Maryland thrashed the Badgers 87-57 in the second round of the NCAA tournament in 2002 on the way to Head Coach Gary Williams' first national title. But this year's Maryland squad is a far cry from the side that knocked off the Badgers two years ago. Gone are Juan Dixon, Steve Blake and Lonnie Baxter. In their place is a young squad with little experience.
The 2003-'04 season is a rebuilding year for the Maryland Terrapins, considering the success the Terps have had the past five years. However, Maryland is off to a 3-0 start this season, having won those three games by an average of 20 points. The quality of those wins could be questioned though, coming against cupcakes American, George Mason and Hofstra.
Regardless of whom they have beaten, the Terrapins received solid play from a variety of players. Sophomore forward Nik Caner-Medley leads the team with 17 points per game, well above his five-point average from last year. Forward Jamar Smith, the team's only senior, has averaged 14 ppg and 11 boards a night in his first year as a starter.
Ryan considers Gary Williams to be a ""system"" coach: the kind of coach whose teams do the same things from year to year, regardless of personnel. The same could be said of Ryan, who has taken his patented ""swing"" offense from UW-Platteville to UW-Milwaukee before ultimately bringing it to Madison.
""It's another system game, you're going against a coach's system,"" Ryan said. ""With Gary Williams, you're playing against a system and no matter where he would be coaching, his teams would play the same way. ... So, you're playing a program that has been successful and knows how to get it done.""
Earlier in the season, when the Badgers played at Penn, Ryan talked about the benefits of playing in hostile situations away from home, such as this trip to College Park. Today's game also presents the Badgers with an opportunity to showcase their skills to a national audience.
""I think every time our players go on the floor they realize they're playing for something a little bit more than just the moment,"" Ryan said. ""They realize what they represent. ... Players always like to make a statement in games as a team member and let people know this is what we can do, and this is what we have.\
