PISCATAWAY, N.J. – After a two-game road trip on the rugged road of the Big Ten, the Scarlet Knights will return back home to the friendly confines of Jersey Mike's Arena on Sunday. Rutgers will welcome in Maryland for a noon game on Big Ten Network, with Dave Revsine and Stephen Bardo on the call. It is the program's annual Blackout Game, with all fans encouraged to wear black.
Rutgers returns home following a two-game road trip with losses at Minnesota and No. 3 Purdue. Despite allowing an average of 88.5 points per game on the trip, the latter contested without defensive stalwart
Mawot Mag, RU's overall defensive metrics remain strong. The team is second in the country in non-steal turnover percentage (10.9), third nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency (91.7), eighth in block percentage (15.5) and in the top-35 in turnover percentage, effective field goal percentage and two-point percentage.
Cliff Omoruyi has a block percentage of 13.2% that tops the country, and he raises that to 13.6% in Big Ten games. This is the third straight year that Omoruyi's in-conference block percentage has been among the top four in the league.
Point guard
Jeremiah Williams has played in six games, and averaged 13.0 points per game in that span, tops on the team. He has scored at least nine points in all his games, with 22 assists.
Maryland enters the matchup at 14-13 overall and 6-10 in Big Ten play under second year head coach Kevin Willard, formerly the bench boss at RU's in-state rival Seton Hall. The Terps have lost five of their last six games since the start of February and are 3-7 in their last 10 games. Maryland leads the Big Ten in scoring defense at 65.0 points per game.
Jahmir Young has scored in double-figures in 22 straight games, leading the team at 21.1 points per game. Young is second nationally among active players with 2,523 points. Donta Scott made his 200
th career three-pointer in the last contest. Julian Reese is second in the Big Ten with 10.0 rebounds per game and fourth at 1.96 blocks per game.
Rutgers and Maryland have faced off 21 times in their history, with the Terps holding a 13-8 advantage. Rutgers has won five of the past seven games starting with the matchup on March 3 of 2020. Earlier this season Rutgers played a road game at Maryland, winning 56-53 on February 6. In that game,
Mawot Mag led Rutgers with 15 points while
Jeremiah Williams added 14. Williams hit a game-winning layup in the final minute.
Clifford Omoruyi is five rebounds from 900 in his career, and 13 rebounds from tying Rashod Kent (910) for fourth on RU's all-time rebounding list.
Omoruyi (82 blocks this season) is one block from matching seventh place on RU's single-season blocks list. Omoruyi, Hamady Ndiaye and Herve Lamizana are the only RU players with multiple seasons of 80+ blocks.
With his next block, Cliff Omoruyi (currently 210 career blocks) will surpass Matt Haarms for 18
th on the all-time Big Tens blocks list. Among players who made their debut starting when RU played its first season in the league in 2014-15, Omoruyi trails just Trayce Jackson-Davis (270) and Mike Watkins (265). Omoruyi will become just the ninth Big Ten player since 2000 to surpass 210 career blocks.
Omoruyi is also 11 points from tying Larry Gordon for 24
th all-time at RU in scoring. With a Win
- Six wins in the past eight games against Maryland
- Nine wins versus the Terps in 22 meetings
- First home-and-home sweep of the season
- Improve to 12-3 at home this season, 26-9 over the past two seasons, 35-13 over the past three and 54-14 over the past four.
Rutgers remains home during the midweek, continuing its Thursday-Sunday pattern of games. The Scarlet Knights will host Michigan on Thursday for an 8:30 pm tipoff on FS1. Rutgers defeated Michigan at the Crisler Center on Feb. 3.
