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The Maryland Terrapins were not ranked in the USA Today Coaches Poll, but they can get some respect with a win over the Connecticut Huskies on Nov. 8–their first game of the season.
Connecticut is getting some love entering the year. It will enter the season by being ranked No. 19 in the Coaches Poll.
Related: Should the Notre Dame Fighting Irish Be Ranked No. 22?
I doubt Maryland would be ranked the following week if it did beat the Huskies, but that certainly would not be out of the question.
As you may already know, Maryland will be without Alex Len since he decided to take his talents to the next level. However, leading scorer Dez Wells will be back. Wells had a big impact in his first year with the team, averaging 13.1 points per game and 4.9 rebounds per game.
Losing Len may hurt in the rebounding department, but life goes on.
The Terps were left out of the NCAA tournament last season, which was pretty reasonable. They finished with a 25-13 record and an ACC record of 8-10. Finishing with a better record in the conference will be a must if this team plans on dancing in the 2013-14 season. However, a few Big East teams joined the conference and three teams are currently ranked in the top 11 of the Coaches Poll.
Still, beating Connecticut would be a huge resume booster. I am not saying that it will happen, but Maryland does have the potential to pull off the upset. The team did pull off a couple of big upsets last season. Maryland managed to beat North Carolina State when it was ranked No. 14 and it beat Duke twice. Both times the Blue Devils were ranked No. 2.
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