The Maryland men's basketball team took care of business against Nebraska on Wednesday night despite playing a mucky game on the road. A lot wasn't good, but this part was: Maryland is now 20-3 overall and 9-2 in the Big Ten and has a good chance at being ranked in the top three of both major polls next week.
In our advanced statistical review, here's a look at how Maryland fared in the "four factors" of team efficiency against Nebraska: effective field goal percentage (eFG%), turnover percentage (TOV%), offensive rebounding percentage (ORB%) and free throw tries per field goal attempt (FTA/FGA).
Shooting
Maryland: 58.2 eFG% // Nebraska: 37.1 eFG% // National average: 49.7 eFG%
Maryland's shooting was typically excellent, with the Terps making almost six in 10 of every shot they fired from the field. (They weren't good at the foul line, but more on that later.) Maryland won by 5 points, and the biggest reason is fairly simple: The Terps made their shots, and the Huskers didn't. That tends to go a long way.
Turnovers
Maryland: 21.4 TOV% // Nebraska: 7.3 TOV% // National average: 18.4 TOV%
The Terps made a much higher percentage of their field goals than the Huskers, but they only took 49 to the Huskers' 66. That's right: In a 40-minute game, Nebraska took 17 more shots from the field than Maryland. The reason was turnovers, as Maryland coughed the ball up 16 times to Nebraska's six, with almost all of that damage coming in the first half.
Maryland continues to be downright bad at both ball security and forcing takeaways, and the sample size is now large enough to think Maryland could be in huge trouble if it faces a havoc defense team in the NCAA Tournament. West Virginia, Wichita State or Providence, for instance, would be nightmare matchups down the line.
Rebounding
Maryland: 37.9 ORB% // Nebraska: 31 ORB% // National average: 30 ORB%
The Terps did a nice job recouping their misses, with Diamond Stone's 5 offensive rebounds paving the way for the team to grab 12 in total. The Terps were still no better than average in sealing the defensive glass, although they held Nebraska to roughly the same offensive rebound rate the Huskies have earned for the season as a whole.
Free throw attempts
Maryland: 0.449 FTA/FGA // Nebraska: 0.333 FTA/FGA //National average: 0.368 FTA/FGA
There's a lot of noise around this stat for this game, so don't weight it too heavily here. Maryland and Nebraska each got to the line 22 times, although Maryland's foul shots came on way fewer field goal tries because of the Terps' turnovers. Maryland also went just 13-of-22 at the line, while Nebraska was 16-of-22.