Maryland men’s basketball’s 2025-26 campaign kicks off Monday in Baltimore against Coppin State.
The first year of the Buzz Williams era brings endless questions for what the Terps will look like. The Crab
Five — and every other scholarshipped player on last season’s team — is gone. In steps a roster made up of 10 transfers, five freshmen and Lukas Sotell.
Our editors did their best to compile their predictions for a season chock-full of unknowns for the Terps.
Player of the year
Matt’s pick: Pharrel Payne
If Payne wasn’t the obvious pick before the Terps’ exhibition with UMBC, he sure is now. The senior center posted an effortless 26 points, nine rebounds and three blocks in 31 minutes against the Retrievers.
Payne has Big Ten size at 6-foot-9 and a muscular 250 pounds. He followed Williams over from Texas A&M, meaning he has valuable experience in the system. Payne was third on the Aggies in both points (10.4) and rebounds (5.1) per game in 2024-25.
While Elijah Saunders and Solomon Washington — the other top two frontcourt options — can occupy key roles, they can’t do much more than that. Payne has already proven he can bring the starpower.
Expect Maryland’s offense to run through Payne, especially with Diggy Coit the only viable true point guard on the roster. Payne won’t be quite the hub Derik Queen was, but Payne’s ability to get inside and kick out to Maryland’s plethora of scoring-first guards will be crucial.
Ryan’s pick: Isaiah Watts
Isaiah Watts is an intriguing option here, and for a few reasons. First, he’s a junior, and he’s improved in each of his first two seasons tremendously. Last season, he started 17 of his 23 games played at Washington State and averaged 11 points per game.
Watts isn’t necessarily a ball-handling guard, rather projecting more as an off-ball creator, similarly to Rodney Rice in 2024. Maryland’s prolific inside-out talent allowed Rice to be a microwave scorer and accumulate points in a hurry. Watts won’t have that same advantage as Rice did with the Crab Five, but the attention that opponents will likely pay to Payne inside should open up plenty of opportunities for Watts.
More importantly, Watts is not a shy shooter. He attempted 5.7 threes per game last season at just under a 35% clip. If he and Rice end up starting alongside each other when both become healthy, that could be a formidable, hard-to-stay-in-front-of duo. I would expect both to create open shots for one another; their speed presents plenty of drive-and-kick opportunities for open shooters.
Nolan’s pick: Myles Rice
Continuing on the train of scoring-first guards, Myles Rice has the potential to be the guy for Maryland from the perimeter.
The former Washington State and Indiana guard’s average dropped from 15 points per game with the Cougars to 10 with the Hoosiers, where he didn’t see much love in a Mike Woodson offense that struggled to create shots.
Perhaps most critically for the Terps, Rice has demonstrated the sort of chemistry that will make the team better. He and Isaiah Watts reunited in College Park after bonding at Washington State. A monstrous inside-outside connection with then-teammate Oumar Ballo flashes on tape, too — Payne can do similar things to the former Hoosier. If they mesh, the Terps will be dangerous.
When he appeared sporting a boot in the Xfinity Center Monday, it was a surprise — he hadn’t worn it just four days prior, at the team’s media day. Williams said his policy is to avoid commenting on injuries out of respect for player privacy but admitted following the UMBC exhibition they “had more healthy bodies” the night before. Rice will need some time to get back up to speed post-injury, but he could be the one to link everything together for the Terps.
Biggest breakout
Matt’s pick: Darius Adams
The four-star freshman proved two things against UMBC. One is that he is raw, and there’s refinement needed to his game. The other is that Adams has the athleticism, aggression and shooting ability to become a star in the Big Ten.
I expect a learning curve for Adams at first. He needs to read the court and finish better on offense, and any freshman needs time to speed up to collegiate defense. But I also expect he’ll be one of Maryland’s top bench producers — if not a starter — by the postseason.
Coit, Rice and Isaiah Watts all missed the UMBC exhibition. Rice was in a walking boot. If any of that trio is out to start the year, Adams will be thrown into the fire immediately. That would be a good thing for him.
What the freshman needs is the experience required for sustained improvement. Once he has that? Look out, Big Ten.
Ryan’s pick: George Turkson Jr.
The Massachusetts native didn’t see any action last season, redshirting his freshman year at Texas A&M. But he made the trip up to College Park alongside Williams, and that decision could prove to be a good one.
The tools are there. He’s long at 6-foot-7, and extremely athletic. In Monday’s exhibition win over UMBC, he totaled 11 points in 21 minutes of action — this included a clutch 3-point make deep in the fourth quarter to put Maryland ahead.
What makes me confident that Turkson will have an impactful season hinges on the fact that Maryland has few true wing players on its roster. Washington projects more as a true four, as does Saunders. Turkson isn’t quite a guard, but he’s also not a big man. His versatility and ability to guard opposing teams’ wings and guards, however, is something that Williams will likely covet. Overall, I’d expect him to be more of a defensive chess piece for the Terps, but the offensive gifts are clear — he just needs some more time on the court to hone them.
Nolan’s pick: Solomon Washington
The Terps are going to need one of their forwards to do something at some point.
Collin Metcalf had an opportunity to show up against UMBC but logged just one minute for reasons unknown. Elijah Saunders had a poor start but finished strong — time will tell which is the real player. George Turkson flashed, and Aleks Alston displayed potential, but neither of the pair should be starting against Big Ten opposition at this point in their careers.
Enter Washington. The other half of the frontcourt transplant that followed Williams, Washington is the defensive yang to Payne’s yin, a force on the interior that has shown the ability to guard every position defensively. He also averaged five points and five rebounds a game while playing just 23 minutes a game.
This prediction hinges on Washington’s improvement as a shooter, though. From 2023-24 to 2024-25, his field goal percentage dropped from 43.8 percent to 35.8 percent — while taking fewer shots. If he regresses to that 2023-24 form, he could be the two-way big Maryland desperately needs.
Bold prediction
Matt’s pick: Baba Oladotun comes home
My bold prediction doesn’t happen on the court. It’s difficult to be too bold about a team we know so little about. I’ll tap into what we do know: Buzz Williams can recruit.
It’s no secret how hard the Terps are trying to lure consensus five-star center Baba Oladotun, a Silver Spring resident and 247Sports’ No. 10 player in the 2026 class. The hometown roots are there, the newfound revenue-share and NIL infrastructure is there — and now Maryland has a coach known for his ability to connect with players on a personal level.
In an era where any power conference school can find the money to pay top players, having a coach like Williams becomes even more valuable.
Maryland has secured three five-star recruits in the past 11 classes. The most recent one, Derik Queen in 2024, made quite the impact on the program in his lone season. Williams and athletic director Jim Smith will do everything in their power to ensure Oladotun does the same. I believe they’ll succeed.
Ryan’s pick: Three players average more than 15 points per game.
Last season, Maryland’s offense was extremely balanced. All five starters averaged double-digit points, and four averaged over 13. Given that I think the Terps’ offense will feature a select few players, I expect that balance to diminish.
What makes this a truly bold take is the fact that no current Maryland player has ever averaged over 15 points per game in a collegiate season. A few have averaged more than 10, including the likes of Payne, Rice, Saunders and Watts.
The point is, someone (or a few people) will need to do the scoring this year. A balanced approach like the 2024 Terps only works when there are offensive weapons all around the court, since that opens up opportunities for every player to get involved.
But when there are less dynamic, shot-creating, refined talents on a roster, those buckets are far harder to come by. That’s why the Terps will likely be forced to turn to those that can create and make shots early on, and build as they go.
Nolan’s pick: Maryland will finish bottom of the Big Ten in free throw percentage.
Calling a regression from the charity stripe isn’t a super controversial take. Last season, the Terps made exactly 75 percent of their free throw attempts, tied for 69th in the nation. A team coached by Williams has beaten that mark out once — in 2022-23, when the Aggies led the SEC with a 75.8 percent mark.
It’d have to be a big regression. That 75 percent was sixth-best in the conference last year. The worst Big Ten team was Minnesota, which made just 66.4 percent of its tries. Northwestern was the only other conference team under 70 percent.
However, it’s certainly doable. Last year, Texas A&M finished with a 69.2 percent free throw percentage, 275th-best in Division I and par for the course — in four of his six years at the helm, the team went under 71 percent.
The profile Williams recruits just typically doesn’t do well from the line, something that looks set to recur in 2025. Of the non-freshmen on the squad, only Saunders and Rice made more than 75 percent of their attempts last season. Watts is a 66 percent career shooter, and most concerningly, Payne made 58 percent, his first season finishing above 50 percent.
Free throws don’t mean everything, but Terps fans are all too familiar with losses in close games. There’s a solid likelihood that that mark will cost Maryland a game or two it should win.
Record prediction
Matt’s pick: 15-15
BartTorvik projects the Terps to finish the regular season 17-13. I’m leaning a bit under that because I think nonconference play won’t be as forgiving as it is on paper.
Marquette, Gonzaga and Virginia are tough opponents. Georgetown and UNLV are far from gimmes. And their 2023 loss to Davidson proves any opponent can pull off an upset if the Terps are disjointed enough.
Maryland’s entire rotation is new. Its coaching staff is new. It’s unfair to assume a team constructed like that will come out the gate at their best, or even close to their best. Even Williams admitted in his media day press conference that the Terps will “probably” lose one or two games “before Christmas” that they shouldn’t.
It’s a very realistic outcome, if not the likely one, that Maryland finishes 6-4 or 5-5 in nonconference play. Williams’ squad is going to need to do a lot of upstream swimming in a competitive Big Ten slate to even think about a March Madness appearance. I don’t think they’ll get there.
Ryan’s pick: 15-15
I agree with Matt’s rationale in terms of the Terps’ record. Admittedly, I haven’t exactly gone game-by-game to determine what their record could be at the end of the season — there’s a lot of unknown with plenty of Big Ten teams, so it’s more of a plausible guess I’m making.
Last season, 15 to 17 wins was about middle-of-the-road in the Big Ten standings, which is where I expect Maryland to be. One of those teams was Rutgers, who was led by two talented freshmen, but ultimately didn’t have quite enough talent around them to get much of anywhere.
While the Terps aren’t quite in the same boat personnel-wise, they will be heavily reliant on one or two players for scoring — likely Payne and Rice. I don’t expect Maryland’s depth to consistently supplement that duo.
I think the Terps have a chance to make a run later in the season, and potentially in the Big Ten Tournament. After all, it’s an entirely new roster with a number of players that have never taken the court with one another before. It will take time to gel and get healthy, and when that happens, Maryland could easily find a groove — and prove me wrong in the process.
Nolan’s pick: 17-13
Like I said earlier… the Terps are going to need one of their forwards to do something at some point.
Outside of Payne, there are several questions in the Maryland front court. One of Metcalf, Saunders and Washington needs to take a step forward. My bet is on the latter, but Saunders is certainly able to lock down the spot for himself.
But the most important thing for this team will be the gelling as the season goes on. Because of Buzz’s boot camp strategy, these players have even fewer hours together on the court than their other newly-constructed counterparts. With time, the Terps will likely look far better than they did against UMBC.
The February schedule past No. 1 Purdue looks like a perfect slate to gather momentum. Along with Williams’ admission that his style usually leads the team to “lose a game or two before Christmas every year that [they] shouldn’t” and “win a game or two after Valentine’s Day that [they] shouldn’t,” it would make perfect sense for this Maryland team to come together late for a push into the bubble.
Whether they actually make the tournament this year? Anyone’s guess.
