10 in 10
From titles to revenue to academics, Maryland scored by joining the Big Ten Conference. Here are 10 ways it’s been a B1G decade.
By Annie Krakower
Photos courtesy of Maryland Athletics
WITH 2023’S MARCH MADNESS just a calendar page away, fans packed the Xfinity Center stands to soak in a matchup of top-10 titans. The No. 7 University of Maryland women’s basketball team was eyeing its fifth straight victory as it hosted No. 6 Iowa and star shooter Caitlin Clark, known nationwide for her deep threes.
But that night, it was the Terps’ Brinae Alexander who lit up the scoreboard, draining six three-pointers to lead UMD’s 96-68 blowout of the Hawkeyes, their biggest loss of the season.
The conference clash had the raucous and rowdy energy of classic Maryland rivalry games—a feeling that many fans worried would evaporate when UMD, a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference since 1953, joined a national wave of realignment and announced in 2012 it would move to the Big Ten starting July 1, 2014.
Ed Woods, a longtime fan and 1984-85 walk-on for Lefty Driesell’s basketball squad, couldn’t believe there’d be no more Duke, Carolina or Virginia. For alums and donors like Stan Goldstein ’68, who hadn’t missed an ACC Tournament from 1975 on, annual appointments would become mere memories.
But 10 years later, they and many other fans have come around to Maryland’s decision. (“I sleep a lot better in the Big Ten,” says Woods, and Goldstein calls it “one of the smartest, most brilliant moves ever.”) Indeed, it’s turned out pretty well for the Terps, who through a storm of shifting conference allegiances that aimed to ease growing and expected financial pressures—salaries, facilities, player compensation—have found safe harbor in the Big Ten.
“We’re sitting in a very, very good position as an institution to be in a conference where we’re on the inside, not on the outside looking in,” says Damon Evans, Barry P. Gossett Director of Athletics. “Stability and continuity are what help programs like ours continue to grow.”
UMD’s athletics revenue has received a substantial boost from the conference’s $7 billion media rights deal with FOX, CBS and NBC, which has also exposed viewers across the nation to Terp teams. New and renovated facilities touching each of Maryland’s 20 varsity sports have opened or are being built. And the Xfinity Center’s trophy cases have filled up with hardware from dozens of titles won.
Their first year in the conference, the powerhouse men’s soccer, field hockey, women’s basketball and men’s and women’s lacrosse teams won titles. Those sports have combined for 27 regular-season, 18 Big Ten Tournament and six national championships since joining.
“Maryland came in and set the standard for what excellence is,” says Christy Winters-Scott ’90, a former ACC-champion women’s basketball player
and now a color analyst for Big Ten Network. “They changed the style of play, the pace of play.”
The football team is fresh off three consecutive bowl wins but is still chasing championship glory in a conference loaded with national powerhouses. The men’s basketball team won the regular-season championship in the COVID-shortened 2020 season, but fans expect regular title runs. Across programs, UMD is still building new traditions and forming new rivalries, even 10 years later—few are getting riled up about a game against Rutgers or Nebraska just yet.
But as the Big Ten grows to encompass four new West Coast universities, the opportunities expand, too. Woods has season tickets, and Goldstein already has a trip to Oregon planned as fans embrace the conference—and the conference embraces the Terps.
“The Big Ten has benefited greatly from Maryland’s contributions since joining the league,” says Big Ten Chief Operating Officer Kerry Kenny, “and we’re excited to see how the Terps and the 17 other member institutions in the conference continue to provide successful opportunities for student-athletes in the classroom, on the playing surface and in the professional world post-graduation.”
Celebrate UMD’s 10 years in the Big Ten with the ultimate highlight reel of B1G moments, facts and figures.
1. A SLAM DUNK INTRO
The women’s basketball team took its new conference by storm in the 2014-15 season, going a perfect 18-0 in Big Ten play. The Terps went on to capture the tournament title and surged to the NCAA Tournament’s Final Four for the second year in a row, with head coach Brenda Frese earning Big Ten Coach of the Year honors.
2. BYE-BYE, BADGERS
In 2021, in front of 1,828 Terp fans in the Xfinity Center Pavilion, an undefeated UMD volleyball team took down previously unbeaten, No. 2-ranked Wisconsin, winning the thrilling back-and-forth match, 3-2. The Terps made history in the process, earning the program’s first victory against a top-10 team.
3. CHAMPS x2
The women’s lacrosse team capped an undefeated 2017 season with a national championship win over ACC member Boston College, just a day before the men’s squad also hoisted the trophy. While the women had also won two years earlier in their first season in the Big Ten—which now also includes Johns Hopkins for lacrosse—the men’s victory over Ohio State ended a 42-year title drought.
4. REACHING THEIR GOAL
A 57th-minute penalty-kick goal by midfielder Amar Sejdic decided the 2018 men’s soccer national championship game, a 1-0 win over Akron that gave the Terps their first title since 2008. Through five NCAA Tournament matches, UMD didn’t allow a single goal.
5. STICKING TO SUCCESS
The field hockey team not only won conference titles its first three years in the league, but it also flexed its muscles in the NCAA Tournament, appearing in nine of the past 10 and reaching national title games in 2017 and 2018.
6. SAVING THE WAY TO HISTORIC HONOR
For 18 years, the Tewaaraton Award, given annually to the top male and female college lacrosse players, had never gone to a goalkeeper. That changed in 2019, when Maryland’s Megan Taylor recorded a .551 save percentage, the best of any Power Five goalie. She notched 10 saves in UMD’s 12-10 victory over Boston College, the Terps’ third national championship in five years.
7. PERFECT SEASON, PERFECT ENDING
After falling one win short of the 2021 title, the men’s lacrosse team defeated Cornell, 9-7, the following year to put a championship cherry on top of a perfect 18-0 season. The Terps became just the fourth undefeated team in the sport’s NCAA history. The last team to do it? The University of Virginia, which had bested UMD in the title game the year before.
8. THE COLLEGE PARK REGIONAL
As if winning the 2022 Big Ten regular-season title—Maryland baseball’s first conference championship since 1971—wasn’t enough, the Terps’ program-record 44 regular-season wins helped them earn the right to host one of 16 NCAA Regionals for the first time.
9. A STORMY NIGHT
In his first season at UMD in 2023, men’s basketball head coach Kevin Willard led the team to a 68-54 upset of No. 3 Purdue, sparking the sellout crowd to storm the Xfinity Center court. The win was Maryland’s first over an AP top five team since 2016, and it extended its program-record Big Ten home game—winning streak to 11.
10. BACK-TO-BACK-TO-BACK BOWLS
From Pinstripe to Duke’s Mayo to Music City, the football team won three consecutive bowl games over a three year stretch for the first time in program history, from 2021-23. The Terps are one of only four teams to win their last three bowls, joining Georgia, Minnesota and Texas Tech.
6 NATIONAL TITLES
UMD stands third behind only Penn State and Ohio State since 2014-15:
• 2015, 2017 and 2019 – Women’s lacrosse
• 2017 and 2022 – Men’s lacrosse
• 2018 – Men’s soccer
49 CONFERENCE TITLES
Third behind only Michigan and Ohio State since 2014-15
FISCAL STRENGTH
The Big Ten led all Power Five conferences in revenue generated in fiscal 2023 with $880M. The ACC’s totaled $707 million.
Maryland’s total athletic revenue increased from $88M in 2014-15 to $110M in 2023-24.
“That was one of the main reasons why we left, to provide us a little better financial footing,” says Evans. “It’s not only the financial footing today, but it’s the financial footing in the future.”
CONFERENCE CAROUSEL
As the Big Ten welcomes Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington, nationwide realignment this season is also shaking up the rest of the Power Five conferences:
WINS BEYOND THE FIELD
Besides netting athletic achievements, Maryland’s conference move has also provided a boost through the Big Ten Academic Alliance, a strategic partnership among member institutions that encourages collaboration and co-investments. Highlights from the past decade include:
Photo by John T. Consoli
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
More than 50 UMD faculty members have participated in the Big Ten Academic Leadership Program, a yearlong initiative to help participants sharpen their university-level administrative leadership skills.
RESEARCH
Big Ten institutions engage in $10 billion in funded research each year; the alliance allows members to partner and leverage resources and facilities. During the pandemic, for example, UMD joined other researchers in the conference in creating a registry to analyze COVID-cardiac associations among athletes.
Photo by Stephanie S. Cordle
COURSESHARE
This program allows students to take language courses offered at other Big Ten schools from a distance. For example, the UMD class “Korean Food Cultures: Past and Present” in Fall 2022 also included students from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Illinois.
LIBRARIES
Under the alliance’s UBorrow program, students, faculty and staff across the Big Ten have rapid access to member institutions’ holdings, which total over 90 million books.
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