The Iowa Hawkeyes (18-5) and Maryland Terrapins (9-14) are set to face off on Wednesday night, going head-to-head at the Xfinity Center. The Big Ten showdown will tip off at 6 p.m. EST on FS1.
The Hawkeyes are 10.5-point road favorites with -675 moneyline odds, and the total has been set at 138.5 points. Here is a preview of the conference matchup, featuring odds and lines from DraftKings Sportsbook.
Iowa at Maryland Preview, Prediction
Iowa Preview
The Hawkeyes only hit two speed bumps in the first two months of the season, dropping a pair of road games to then-No. 7 Michigan State and then-No. 4 Iowa State. Otherwise, Iowa took care of business against Xavier and Ole Miss before besting Maryland and UCLA in early Big Ten action. It lost three straight in January – at Minnesota, vs. then-No. 16 Illinois and at then-No. 5 Purdue – but by an average margin of just 5.3 points. It also followed up that skid with a six-game winning streak against Indiana, Rutgers, USC, Oregon, Washington and Northwestern.
Drake transfer Bennett Stirtz leads the Hawkeyes with 19.9 points per game, having broken 30 in two of his last three contests. The senior guard is shooting 40.6% on 6.0 three-point attempts per game, all while averaging 4.8 assists and 1.5 steals a night. Tavion Banks, who is far less of a high-volume perimeter threat, is averaging 10.9 points and 4.4 rebounds per game. Coach Ben McCollum also brought Banks to Iowa City from Drake. Spanish forward Alvaro Folgueiras, Iowa’s sixth man, is the team’s third-leading scorer with 8.7 points per game. Cooper Koch, Cam Manyawu, Tate Sage, Isaia Howard and Kael Combs round out the balanced scoring attack, each averaging between 6.1 and 7.0 points per game. The top eight players in McCollum’s rotation have appeared in all 23 games this season, with Manyawu and Howard standing out as the only ones not shooting above 36.5% from deep.
Iowa ranks No. 10 in field-goal percentage nationally, boasting the No. 16 two-point percentage, No. 26 three-point percentage and No. 30 free-throw percentage. And while it ranks bottom-10 in rebounds per game, its opponents average the fewest in the country.
The Hawkeyes rank No. 19 in the updated KenPom ratings, owning the No. 18 adjusted offense and No. 25 adjusted defense. As for the NET rankings, Iowa comes in at No. 21, going 2-4 against Quad 1, 5-1 against Quad 2, 2-0 against Quad 3 and 9-0 against Quad 4. Wednesday’s game at Maryland constitutes a Quad 3 matchup.
Maryland Preview
Outside of tight wins at Marquette and versus UNLV, the Terrapins failed to make much noise in nonconference play. They lost to Georgetown by double-digits at home, fell to No. 12 Gonzaga and then-No. 8 Alabama by 30-plus in Vegas, then came up short at then-No. 23 Virginia. Maryland lost to Iowa by 19 in its Big Ten opener, followed by an 18-point loss to No. 2 Michigan. It has since beaten Penn State and Minnesota, neither of whom are top-75 KenPom teams, while losing to Oregon, Indiana, UCLA, USC, then-No. 11 Illinois, No. 10 Michigan State, No. 12 Purdue and Ohio State.
Pharrel Payne, who opened the year averaging 17.5 points. 7.2 rebounds and 9.6 free-throw attempts per game, has been out with an injury since Dec. 13. Five-foot-11 guard David Coit now leads Maryland with 15.2 points per game, even dropping 29 on Sunday, but he has been in and out of the starting lineup. Star freshman Darius Adams ranks second among active Terps at 11.7 points per game, followed by forward Solomon Washington at 10.1. Washington, who didn’t return from a preseason ankle injury until December, is also averaging 8.8 rebounds per game.
Maryland ranks No. 348 in field-goal percentage in Buzz Williams’ first season since coming over from Texas A&M, on top of ranking No. 327 in two-point percentage and No. 282 in three-point percentage. Only two teams in the country average fewer assists per game.
Per the latest KenPom ratings, the Terrapins rank No. 120 on offense, No. 151 on defense and No. 123 overall. They come in at No. 161 in the NET, going 0-10 against Quad 1, 2-2 against Quad 2, 2-2 against Quad 3 and 5-0 against Quad 4. Wednesday’s game versus Iowa constitutes a Quad 1 matchup.
Iowa at Maryland Pick, Best Bet
The Hawkeyes have notched three double-digit wins during their six-game winning streak. All three of those one-sided victories came on the road against teams ranked higher in the KenPom than Maryland. It has taken a high-tempo team like USC to truly threaten Iowa during this stretch, and the Terrapins are not that.
Each of Maryland’s last seven losses have come by at least 12 points. Only one of its losses this season has come by single digits. Some of the teams that have beat down the Terps, even in College Park, are not as efficient overall as the Hawkeyes. Ohio State ranks 22 spots below Iowa in the KenPom and just won at Maryland by 20 points last Thursday. Indiana is 16 spots lower than Iowa and still notched an 18-point win against the Terrapins last month. And while Iowa isn’t a top-10 team like Purdue or Michigan State, those teams beat Maryland by 30 and 43 points, respectively, within the past few weeks.
If you’re going to toss in a bet on the point total, lean toward the over on 138.5. Iowa is averaging just 76.5 points during its six-game winning streak, thanks in part to its glacial tempo. Maryland has hardly had the chance to control the pace much this season, mostly falling into whatever its opponent has decided. Removing its 96-point outlier against a horrendous Penn State defense last month, the Payne-less Terrapins have averaged just 61.8 points per game since the calendar turned to 2026. And yet, each team has only failed to clear Wednesday’s point total twice in their last 10 games.
