When Kevin Willard left Maryland men’s basketball at the altar for Villanova on March 30, fans hoped that players such as point guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie and shooting guard Rodney Rice might stay. Mike DeCourcy was not surprised when they and seven of their teammates vacated College Park before the university hired Buzz Williams away from Texas A&M on April 1.
“When coaches come in now, it’s not like [they can say], ‘Oh, I want him,’ or, ‘I don’t want him,’” said DeCourcy, a college basketball analyst for the Big Ten Network and columnist for Sporting News. “There’s nobody left. You might be able to talk one guy into staying if they’re really entrenched, but basically now when a coach leaves, the locker room is vacant, and you have to figure out how to restock it. It’s just become standard to have to rebuild the roster immediately after a change.”
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And rebuild Williams did. In a span of 56 days, he filled out the Terps’ 15-man roster for the 2025-26 season.
Whether this new group can replicate the accomplishments of last year’s team that went 27-9, earned a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament and participated in its first Sweet 16 since 2016 remains to be seen. But the moves Williams made piqued DeCourcy’s interest.
Here are his observations.
Offensive fireworks might be rare
Maryland’s output of 81.1 points per game last winter ranked 13th in program history and was a 12.1-point improvement from the 2023-24 season, which led the Big Ten. Replicating that explosion might be a grind this year.
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Only four of the team’s 10 transfer additions — former Indiana shooting guard Myles Rice, former Virginia small forward Elijah Saunders, former Texas A&M power forward Pharrel Payne and former Washington State shooting guard Isaiah Watts — crossed the 10 points per game plateau last winter. None of the four averaged 12 or more points per game.
Former Kansas point guard David Coit amassed 15.5 points in 2022-23 and 20.8 in 2023-24 when he played at Northern Illinois.
Scoring from behind the 3-point line could also be hit-or-miss. Watts has connected on 35.8% (72 of 201) of his 3-point attempts over his career, Coit is at 36.1% (221 of 613) and Rice has converted 29.4% (63 of 214).
Perimeter shooting will be a priority for Maryland, especially as a tool to open the middle for Payne, former Texas A&M small forward Solomon Washington (4.7 points per game) and former Northeastern center Collin Metcalf (4.0).
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“I think there is a concern about where they are going to get points, where they’re going to get some offense,” DeCourcy said. “Remember, they’re in a league that is not forgiving. The Big Ten wasn’t the best league in the country last year, but Year 1 to Year 5 as a whole, it’s been the best league. So it is going to be a challenge for Maryland to be significant in ’26.
“But as we said, relative to the roster, with the youth of the roster, that’s something where you build a culture and a standard, and that’s something that he is very good at. And when you add a couple or three pieces on top of the core you have, then you can really become great.”
Defense — Williams’ forte — should be the foundation
If the offense is lacking, perhaps the defense can fill the void.
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Over the past two years, Williams’ Aggies led the Southeastern Conference in rebounding margin (+13.0 in 2023-24 and +8.7 in 2024-25) and ranked first in rebounds per game in 2023-24 (44.5) and third in 2024-25 (41). That would seem to suit a frontcourt potentially consisting of the 6-foot-9 Payne (5.4 rebounds per game), the 6-8 Saunders (5.0) and the 6-9 Metcalf (3.3).
Texas A&M also excelled at limiting opposing offenses. The 2023-24 squad ranked third in the SEC in defending the 3-point line (32.1%), while the 2024-25 team was second in points allowed per game (68.7) and third in field-goal percentage (.406).
And with four former Aggies players in Payne, Washington and freshman guards Andre Mills and George Turkson Jr., they can help their new teammates absorb Williams’ defensive principles, DeCourcy said.
“Last year at A&M in what was the deepest league in the history of college basketball, he put up the 10th-rated defense in college basketball [according to KenPom],” he said. “That’s obviously not easy to do when you’re facing great opposition almost on a nightly basis and highly motivated opposition because every quality win was something you needed to get into the NCAA Tournament, and to put up the No. 10 defense in that league shows what he is on that end of the floor.
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“He’s a terrific defensive coach, and I think they’re absolutely going to have to be excellent on defense next year to be competitive. You win by making the number of baskets that you need at the end, and that’s going to be the challenge for the Terps.”
Williams seems to be building for the future
Last winter, Willard opined that future recruiting plans would focus on mining the transfer portal for veteran players who have proven themselves in college rather than newcomers out of high school. Williams appears to be taking a different approach.
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Only five of the 15 players will be seniors or older — Coit, Metcalf, Payne, Rice and Saunders. The rest have multiple years of eligibility left, including five true freshmen in shooting guards Darius Adams, Nick Blake and Guillermo Del Pino, small forward Jaziah Harper and power forward Aleks Alston. Adams is a five-star prospect.
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The youthful composition of the roster might suggest that the debut campaign will be marked by some growing pains. But that’s not altogether a terrible thing, according to DeCourcy.
“A lot of coaches have gone straight veteran and tried to get great immediately,” he said. “What Maryland has done — and I haven’t talked to Buzz about this whether it’s by choice or by chance — there’s a lot of young players that are a part of what he’s done there, and I think that’s fascinating. Del Pino, Darius Adams, those are guys that could be very impactful players for multiple years.”
Have a news tip? Contact Edward Lee at eklee@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/EdwardLeeSun.
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