When Maryland joined the Big Ten, it was not only switching to a conference with different geographic footprint, but one with different levels of competition than the ACC. This left sports like football, women’s volleyball and wrestling hoping to catch up, while it left others like women’s basketball, men’s soccer and field hockey wondering if they could stay relevant in a conference where the competition wasn’t as strong.
Four years in, it’s hard to say that joining the Big Ten has had a big impact on the latter three so far. But because this is a retrospective, let’s take a look anyway.