For the first time since 1981, an intrastate rivalry game between Maryland and UMBC has not been scheduled for the upcoming season.
The 35-game series is the second-oldest in Retrievers history, trailing only their 44-game rivalry with Towson. The only time the two teams did not meet since 1981 was March 6, 2013 when snow forced a cancellation.
UMBC coach Don Zimmerman called the end of the series "very disappointing," but he was tight-lipped when pressed about specifics last week.
Asked if there were negotiations to schedule the game, Zimmerman said, "There was some." Asked about the possibility of reviving the rivalry in the future, he replied, "I guess there's always a chance, but both parties have got to want to do it."
Terps coach John Tillman said the program's move from the Atlantic Coast Conference to the Big Ten forced the team to block off the last six weeks of the regular season for five league games and the conference tournament.
After that, Tillman, who spoke at the team's media day on Tuesday afternoon, said he tried to retain traditional series.
"We were in a position where we had to put everything on the back end and then we really felt like we wanted to try to do the best we could to maintain relationships and rivalries, but also try to do the best we could with RPI, strength of schedule, getting the strategic locations for alums, recruiting," he said. "So we try to do the best we could to make it work for us, and we know ultimately, not everybody's going to be happy with our decisions. But it doesn't say that maybe we couldn't pick it up down the road."
Tillman said he is open to resuming the series, but he also said he is committed to creating the best possible schedule for his program.
"Sometimes you kind of look at the big picture and you have to make some decisions for a lot of different reasons," he said. "That's part of being the head guy. You just have to make tough decisions and think, 'Hey, what would be best here for a lot of different reasons?' The schedules have to line up, there has to be the right date, it has to work.
"So there's a lot of factors. It's not just as easy as I do want to play or I don't want to play. There's a lot of teams I'd really like to play. There's a lot of teams I'd like to have on the schedule, and you can't do all of them. It's really hard."