Maryland vs. Bowie State preview: Terps take a break from Big Ten play to host Division-II foe

After outlasting Purdue at home on Saturday, Maryland men's basketball is in for quite a change of pace. The Terps will welcome Bowie State to Xfinity Center this Tuesday in the kind of game that is usually reserved for the first week of the season. The Terps are playing the Bulldogs in the dog days of conference play, and this should be nothing short of a domination by the home team.

David vs. Goliath really doesn't begin to describe how mismatched these two teams are. Maryland is more talented and taller than almost every team in Division I, so just imagine how much of an advantage it has against a team that is only one game over .500 in the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association. Bowie State is only winning its Division-II games by an average margin of 3.6 points. This matchup does nothing to help the Terps' relatively poor strength of schedule, but as long as they pick up the win, it probably won't matter. Adding to the general weirdness of this game is a 6 p.m. tipoff. You can watch on BTN and stream at BTN2go.com.

There's no way around this - the chance that Maryland loses Tuesday's game is precisely zero.

Bowie State Bulldogs (13- 9, 6-5 CIAA)

The coach

Darrell Brooks. He is 126-67 and 76-36 mark in the CIAA in seven seasons at the helm of his alma mater. Before coming to Bowie State, he served as an assistant at George Washington.

Players to know

Justin Beck, senior, guard, 6'2, No. 10. Beck is the team's leading scorer with 14.8 points per game, and does so on an efficient 46 percent shooting. He's also the Bulldogs' leading rebounder with 6.1 boards per game and leads the team in offensive rebounds. He's not a threat from deep, as he only shoots 31 percent from beyond the three-point line.

Julian Livingston, senior, guard/forward, 6'5, No. 11. He's the team's second option on offense. Livingston leads the team in three-point percentage, but 38 percent still doesn't strike too much fear in the hearts of opposing defenses (even if it's still higher than what Melo Trimble, Jake Layman and Jared Nickens are shooting this season). He's third on the team with 10.7 points per game, but only shoots 43 percent from the field.

Miles Jackson, senior, guard/forward, 6'7, No. 21. Another senior, Jackson is the team's most efficient shooter. He hits 49 percent of his shots from the field and averages 10 points per game. He's also the Bulldogs second-leading rebounder with 5.6 boards per game.

Strengths

Nah. Look, Bowie State is just not built to play a team like Maryland. The Bulldogs have a surprising amount of height for a D-II squad, but that won't matter. They've has already lost to Livingstone University, Shaw University and The Lincoln University. They're not beating a top-five team. There are more specific reasons than that, but who cares? Even if Bowie State excels at something in Division-II play, Maryland is just in an entirely different universe.

Weaknesses

Offensive efficiency. The Bulldogs only shoot 43.1 percent from the field, and even though they only allow their opponents to shoot 41.6 percent, that's still a pretty poor mark. Since KenPom doesn't list stats for Division-II teams, we don't have an official "efficiency" stat to go by, but this will do.

Rebounding. Bowie State enters Tuesday's matchup with a minus-1 rebounding differential on the season, and they aren't exactly boxing out A.J. Hammons and Isaac Haas in the CIAA. Even though this is an area in which Maryland has struggled this season, it shouldn't be a problem against the Bulldogs. Really nothing should be a problem for the Terps. This game just isn't fair.

Predictions

KenPom: Literally doesn't even give a prediction. This game doesn't even show up on Maryland's schedule on the website.

Ryan's prediction: Maryland wins, 94-54. This game will be over in the first half, easily.