SAN FRANCISCO — The Maryland men’s basketball team is a win away from the program’s first Elite Eight appearance in more than two decades. All the fourth-seeded Terps have to do Thursday night is ignore the noise about their coach and beat one of the best teams in recent memory.

Top-seeded Florida (32-4) has lost just once since Feb. 1, winning its past eight games, including a dominant run through the Southeastern Conference tournament. The Gators are just third nationally in analytical website KenPom’s season-long rankings, but their adjusted efficiency metrics are better than those of all but one national champion since the 2001-02 season (2024 Connecticut).

Florida has the nation’s No. 2 offense, according to KenPom, behind only Duke. It also has the No. 10 defense. Maryland (27-8) ranks No. 10 overall, with the sixth-best defense and 22nd-best offense. No wonder Terps coach Kevin Willard had no interest Wednesday in talking about his uncertain future with the program.

“They’re as good a basketball team as I’ve seen on film all year,” he said ahead of their Sweet 16 matchup at Chase Center.

Here’s how Maryland can play spoiler and move within a win of the Final Four.

Stop Walter Clayton Jr.

Willard had a lofty comparison for Florida’s All-America guard. Pictures of him happened to be plastered around the staging area for Wednesday’s news conference: Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry.

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“He reminds me of Steph a little bit [with] how good he is off the dribble,” Willard said of Clayton, who’s averaging a team-high 17.9 points, 4.2 assists and 3.8 rebounds per game and is shooting 38.7% from 3-point range. A scouting report from Maryland’s analytics partner, according to Willard, found that Clayton “grades better than any player they’ve ever had analytically shooting the basketball off the dribble, going right off the dribble, going left.”

Clayton went just 2-for-7 in the first half of Florida’s second-round win over Connecticut on Sunday. The Gators trailed the eighth-seeded Huskies late in the second half until Clayton hit a go-ahead 3 with just under three minutes remaining. Two minutes later, he all but put the game away with an off-balance 3 that gave Florida a 70-64 lead.

“When you watch him on film, what I love about him, if he misses three in a row, his body language, it don’t matter,” Willard said. “A lot of kids get sensitive when they miss two or three in a row. He’s just going to keep coming right at you. I think that’s what makes him such a great shooter, is he has so much confidence in himself that he’s going to make the next one.”

Terps guards Ja’Kobi Gillespie, Rodney Rice and Selton Miguel will need to corral Clayton better than they did star Colorado State guard Nique Clifford, who had 21 points, seven rebounds and six assists in the Rams’ second-round loss Sunday.

Get defensive rebounds

About two weeks ago, Maryland entered the Big Ten Conference tournament in relative control of the defensive glass. Two days later, the Terps left with a semifinal loss and a rebounding issue that now won’t go away.

Over Maryland’s 20 regular-season games in Big Ten play, the Terps collected 72.8% of opponents’ missed shots, the fourth-best mark in the conference, according to CBB Analytics. Over the past three games — the semifinal loss to Michigan and NCAA tournament wins over Grand Canyon and Colorado State — Maryland’s defensive-rebounding rate plunged to 60%. (Prairie View ranks last in Division I this season at 60.9%.) The Wolverines feasted inside, relying on their pair of 7-footers to finish with 18 offensive rebounds. The considerably smaller Rams had 13 on Sunday.

Florida won’t give Maryland much margin for error. The Gators are fifth nationally in offensive-rebounding rate (38.7%) and have averaged 14 offensive boards per game. Forward Alex Condon averages 2.9 per game, center Rueben Chinyelu adds 2.4 per game, and even reserve forward Thomas Haugh chips in 2.3 per game.

Willard has said the Terps’ recent rebounding woes stem largely from their defensive strategy, not necessarily the play of star center Derik Queen and forward Julian Reese.

“I think we’re going to try to switch a whole lot less than we have,” Willard said Thursday. “I think they score something crazy — like, 32% of their points come from offensive rebounds. I’ve never seen anything like that in my life. It’s an unbelievable stat. As good as they are, as they shoot it, as good as they are in transition, you get a stop, and then they punish you on the offensive glass."

Limit fast-break opportunities

Maryland’s best hope for stopping Florida’s flamethrower offense will have to start when the Terps have the ball. The more the Gators can run in unsettled situations, the harder they are to contain.

Florida is averaging 16.5 fast-break points per game, second most in the nation and 19.3% of its overall scoring load (85.4 points per game), according to CBB Analytics. Just as impressive, the Gators have averaged 86 points over their past three games while getting less from their transition offense. Just 16 of their 95 points in a first-round blowout of Norfolk State came via the fast break.

They had 13 transition points in their 77-75 win two days later against the Huskies. Even Florida’s 86-77 win over Tennessee in the SEC tournament final required more half-court efficiency, with just 10 fast-break points.

The Terps’ transition defense was staunch in conference play, allowing just 7.5 points per game, fifth best in the Big Ten. But another slow start Thursday — Grand Canyon led 7-2 about five minutes into their matchup, and Colorado State led 22-10 about 10 minutes into their matchup — could be too much for Maryland to overcome. Florida has run away from one challenger after another this season, beating 13 NCAA tournament teams by double digits.

“I think that’s why they’re so good and they’ve had so much success,” Willard said. “They beat you in so many different ways.”