The Maryland Terrapins men's basketball team represents the University of Maryland in National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I competition. Maryland, a founding member of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), left the ACC in 2014 to join the Big Ten Conference. Gary Williams, who coached the Terrapins from 1989 to 2011, led the program to notable achievements, including two consecutive Final Fours in 2001 and 2002, which culminated in the 2002 NCAA National Championship. Maryland has appeared in 31 NCAA tournaments and won their conference tournament 4 times. The Terrapins have competed in 102 seasons, accumulating an overall record of 1,678–1,109 as of the 2024–25 season.
The Terrapins played in an Atlantic Coast Conference game — the championship of the 1974 ACC men's basketball tournament, in which they lost 103–100 in overtime to eventual national champion North Carolina State. The game was instrumental in forcing the expansion of the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship, thus allowing for at-large bids and the inclusion of more than one team per conference. That Maryland team, with six future NBA draft picks, is considered by many to be the greatest team not to have participated in the NCAA tournament.Bill Free – This Overtime Lasts 25 Years The 1974 team left it all out on the floor. Baltimore Sun, hosted at University of Maryland Terrapins athletic site, February 20, 1999
History
Early years – the H. Burton Shipley era Before basketball became a permanent fixture in College Park, the school—then known as Maryland Agricultural College—met with little success in its intermittent attempts to establish a basketball team. A team first appeared in 1904–05, playing only two games in an intramural/club setting. Their first game was recorded as a loss to a "Washington YMCA," but the final score is unknown. Games were played sporadically during the 1910–1911, 1912–13, 1913–1914, and the 1918–1919 seasons, going a combined 7–36. Basketball returned to stay for the 1923–24 season, when the school convinced former star quarterback H. Burton Shipley, who had been coaching at the University of Delaware, to come back to his alma mater. The Old Liners, as they were then known, joined the Southern Conference in their inaugural season. The team met with moderate success that year at 5–7 and also played its first games against future ACC rivals North Carolina and Virginia. The Old Liners had their first sustained success over the next four seasons, finishing at or above .500 in each of them and putting together an outstanding 24–9 record against Southern Conference foes. The Aggies also faced two teams that would later become their biggest rivals, North Carolina State and Duke, during this period.
The school's biggest success during its formative years took place in the early 1930s, around the time it adopted its current nickname, Terrapins. After finishing second in the conference in 1930–31, Maryland won the Southern Conference tournaments, beating Louisiana State, North Carolina, Georgia, and Kentucky over five days, a feat they followed by winning the conference regular season crown the next year. The team also had its first individual star in Louis "Bosey" Berger who was named to All-America teams both seasons. It was during this stretch that the school erected a new home for its basketball teams, Ritchie Coliseum, which housed the team until Cole Field House replaced it a quarter of a century later.
Although the team would remain competitive throughout the rest of the decade, finishing as high as second in the conference regular season, it never again matched its achievements of the early part of the decade, and as the 1940s began, the school's basketball team fell on exceedingly hard times. Shipley tallied just one winning season in his last seven years before stepping down to focus on coaching the baseball team, a post he'd held for his entire tenure since returning to College Park. He was succeeded by Flucie Stewart. In what would become a long-running pattern at Maryland when a long-tenured head coach stepped down, Stewart would not last very long, putting together three losing seasons in three tries during his brief time at Maryland.
The Bud Millikan era and the ACC The 1950s began with a new head coach leading the way, Bud Millikan. A disciple of Henry Iba, Millikan's emphasis on defense and fundamentals would become hallmarks of the program over the next two decades. Maryland quickly reeled off seven straight winning seasons under Millikan. For the 1953–54 season, the team joined North Carolina, North Carolina State, Duke, Wake Forest, Virginia, Clemson, and South Carolina in leaving the SoCon for the newly formed Atlantic Coast Conference. That season was perhaps the finest the Terrapins had experienced to date, finishing with a 23–7 record and a conference mark good enough for second in the league. Maryland experienced its first games as a ranked team, spending the final nine weeks of the season ranked in the AP Top 20, peaking at No. 11 before settling for a final ranking of #20. It also featured the school's first win over a ranked team when it beat local rival George Washington, then-number 7 in the country. The team was led by its second All-American, Gene Shue, who was honored in both that season and the prior year.
After that season, the team remained the only school outside of the North Carolina "Big Four" – Duke, UNC, North Carolina State, and Wake Forest – to consistently field competitive teams. In the ACC's second year, the Terps cracked the top ten for the first time, peaking at No. 6 in January before eventually finishing the season with a disappointing one-point loss to Virginia in the ACC tournament quarterfinal round.
The Terps had another breakout season during the 1957–58 season. After a good regular season (17–6, 4th in the ACC), Maryland stunned the league by winning the ACC tournament, including wins over #6 Duke and #13 North Carolina on back to back days to capture the title as well as the league's berth in the NCAA tournament. The team routed Boston College 86–63 at Madison Square Garden with just two days of rest after the ACC tournament, advancing to the East Regionals in Charlotte. The Terps lost a tight game to Temple in the round of 16 before beating Manhattan in the consolation game to secure third place in the East.
That would be the high-water mark for the Terps under Millikan. They experienced their first losing season under the coach the next season, although they did manage to finish third in the ACC, including its first ever win over a #1 ranked team when it beat North Carolina 69–51 in Cole Field House on February 21. By 1962–63, the bottom had dropped out and the Terps finished just 3–11 in the ACC, next to last in the standings. While Millikan managed to turn the program around in the mid-1960s, finishing in a second place tie in 1964–65 and above .500 overall again the next season, the feeling in College Park was that the game had passed the coach by, and he was replaced after the following season by assistant Frank Fellows. Fellows' tenure lasted just two seasons, both of which featured only eight wins.
The Lefty Driesell era In 1969, Charles "Lefty" Driesell was hired by the University of Maryland. During his introductory press conference, he made the bold statement that he wanted to make Maryland the "UCLA of the East". At that time, UCLA was the nation's dominant college basketball program. While Driesell did not elevate Maryland to UCLA's heights, he did lead the Terrapins to eight NCAA tournament appearances, a National Invitation Tournament championship, two Atlantic Coast Conference regular season championships, and one Atlantic Coast Conference tournament championship. Maryland also attained a No. 2 Associated Press ranking during four consecutive seasons from 1972 to 1976.
Driesell coached the Maryland Terrapins from 1969 to 1986. During his tenure, he successfully recruited numerous exceptional players, including Tom McMillen, Len Elmore, John Lucas, Albert King, Buck Williams, and Len Bias. In 1974, he signed perhaps the best college prospect of his career, future basketball Hall of Famer Moses Malone, but Malone chose instead to go to a professional basketball franchise, the Utah Stars. Malone was the first player in the modern era to proceed directly from high school into professional basketball, deciding on the day classes were scheduled to begin.
At Maryland, Driesell began the now nationwide tradition of Midnight Madness. According to longstanding NCAA rules, college basketball teams were not permitted to begin practices until October 15. Driesell traditionally began the first practice with a requirement that his players run one mile in six minutes, but found that the players were too fatigued to practice effectively immediately afterwards. At 12:03 a.m. on October 15, 1971, Driesell held a one-mile run at the track around Byrd Stadium, where a crowd of 1,000 fans had gathered after learning of the unorthodox practice session. The event soon became a tradition to build excitement for the basketball team's upcoming season.
In 1972, Maryland defeated Niagara, 100–69 to secure the National Invitation Tournament championship. Driesell said that the season attained the three goals he had set for the program at the time of his hiring: "national prominence", "national ranking", and "a national championship".
On July 12, 1973, Driesell saved the lives of at least ten children from several burning buildings. He and two other men were surf fishing around midnight in Bethany Beach, Delaware when he saw flames coming from a seashore resort. Driesell broke down a door and rescued several children from the fire that eventually destroyed four townhouses. An eyewitness, Prince George's County circuit court Judge Samuel Meloy, said, "Let's face it, Driesell was a hero. There were no injuries and it was a miracle because firemen didn't come for at least 30 minutes." Driesell said, "Don't build me up as any kind of hero. All we did was try to get the kids out. It was just lucky that we were fishing right in front of the houses." For these actions, Driesell was awarded the NCAA Award of Valor.
In 1974, the No. 4 Terrapins played in what many consider one of the greatest college basketball games of all time, losing the ACC men's basketball tournament 103–100 in overtime to eventual national champion and No. 1 North Carolina State. Each team only played seven players each, and eight of those 14 went on to be NBA Draft picks, including six from Maryland. The game included 91 field goals made on 157 attempts between the teams, in spite of top-level defense being played. "We didn't score 100 points or they didn't because we were sorry defensive teams. (N.C. State) had a 7-foot-4 center" in Tommy Burleson, said Lefty Driesell. "We had (Len) Elmore, who was one of the best shot-blockers ever to play in the league." After the game, the Greensboro, N.C. crowd, traditionally unfriendly to non-North Carolina ACC teams, gave both teams a standing ovation. After the loss, Maryland declined an invitation to the NIT. Maryland's team was considered by many to be the greatest team not to have participated in the NCAA tournament because, at the time, only the winner of a conference tournament would earn a bid. It was Maryland's exclusion that finally forced an expansion to allow at-large bids and more than one team per conference.