The Illinois baseball team's NCAA-best 27-game winning streak is over, and so are Maryland's doubts about its NCAA tournament chances.
With a 2-1 win early Friday morning over the No. 4 Fighting Illini (46-7-1), the top seed in the Big Ten Conference tournament, the fourth-seeded Terps all but guaranteed their second straight appearance in the Division I regionals. Because of the game schedule of the double-elimination tournament, they will have a day off Friday at Minneapolis' Target Field and face the winner of the game between No. 2 seed Iowa and No. 6 seed Indiana on Saturday.
Maryland (38-20), which beat fifth-seeded Michigan State in its tournament opener to advance to face an Illini team that hadn't lost since March 29, was considered a "bubble" team, with a Ratings Percentage Index in the 50s and a late-season series loss to Northwestern.