COLLEGE PARK — Picked as the favorite to win the Big Ten Conference this season, the Maryland men's basketball team is relegated to playing for second place — at best — during the last week of the regular season after Indiana clinched the outright title with a win at Iowa on Tuesday night.

As tempted as he might have been to watch the Hoosiers on Tuesday, just to get a feel for his team's opponent Sunday in Bloomington, a bigger concern for Terps coach Mark Turgeon is the way No. 14 Maryland (23-6, 11-5) has struggled going into tonight's final home game at Xfinity Center against Illinois (13-16, 5-11).

Maryland has lost three of four after Sunday's 83-79 defeat at Purdue — a game in which the Terps fell behind by 16 points early and, after nearly catching up by halftime, fell behind by 10 with a little more than four minutes left before tying it. .

“I feel good about our team,” Turgeon said Wednesday. “Nothing's changed with us. We're trying to be the best team that we can become. We are a little more focused. That naturally happens … when you can see the end coming. Hopefully what we went through is going to make us a better team in March. That's all you can hope for.”

Tonight's game will celebrate four players — starters Jake Layman and Rasheed Sulaimon and walk-ons Varun Ram (River Hill) and Trevor Anzmann (Westminster) — on senior night.

It could also be the last home game for freshman center Diamond Stone and sophomore point guard Melo Trimble, both of whom are widely believed to be leaning toward entering the NBA draft after the season.

Asked whether there's a sense that Turgeon could have the best team he might have for a while at Maryland, the fifth-year coach said: “No, I can't control the future. I don't concern myself with that. The only thing I'm concerned about is trying to win as many games as we can. I don't think of it that way. I don't.”

“We've got to get to where we're playing our best basketball. That's all I'm concerned about,” he said. “And we're making some pretty good strides. I know it doesn't look that way, if you look at what we've done. But we've had some time to practice. I feel like we're getting ready to really start playing well.”

Said Layman: “I think our offense is coming along really well the last couple of games. I think for us it's all about defense and rebounding. It's kind of time for us to take that next step.”

It is not the way Turgeon and his players want to enter the Big Ten tournament, which begins March 11 if the Terps hang on to one of the top four seeds and get a double bye and next Thursday if they don't. A victory over the Fighting Illini would secure a double bye for the Terps.

While the scenarios can change between now and next week, the Terps currently hold the No. 4 seed.

Michigan State, which has won five straight and nine of the past 10, including a rout of Rutgers on Wednesday night, likely to finish second. Wisconsin, which had won 10 of 11 going into Minnesota on Wednesday night, is third. The Spartans finish at Ohio State and the Badgers at No. 15 Purdue.

“It's huge,” Turgeon said of the double bye. “I haven't looked at it [the standings], I don't pay attention to stuff like that. I'm trying to beat Illinois and get to 12 [wins in the league] and 24 [wins for the season]. But if you want to win the tournament, a double bye would help. … I know it's a logjam right now.”

Turgeon said the team won't talk about seedings the rest of the week, but acknowledged that the Terps might have felt some pressure trying to stay in the Big Ten race, and conceded that the subject came up throughout the game Saturday.

“We talked a lot about it during the Purdue game — ‘Hey, if we want to have a chance to win it' — because we were still in control then,” Turgeon said Wednesday. “We used it a lot in that game. But after that game, ‘We're not in control, we want to become the best team we can be.' I think it's about trying to win games, trying to get better and trying to prepare yourself for postseason.”

Asked whether he was disappointed not to win the Big Ten regular season, Turgeon said: “Yeah, it's disappointing. It is what it is. If you look at the standings and who we've had to play on the road, we've had a tough go. But it's preparing us, which is more important. I'm really proud of my team and what we're doing and what we've done, and I think the best is yet to come for us.”

don.markus@baltsun.com

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