Amid uncertainty and upheaval throughout major college athletics, Maryland men’s basketball coach Buzz Williams’ knack for flipping program fortunes has remained constant. That track record is exactly what Terrapins’ supporters are counting on this season, Williams’ second in College Park.
Williams enters his 20th year as a head coach with a mandate to restore Maryland’s winning ways. He was able to do so at his previous two stops, most recently with Texas A&M. There, Williams directed the Aggies to 27 victories one season after they went 8-10 in pandemic-shortened 2020-21.
At Virginia Tech, Williams guided the Hokies from 11-22 in 2014-15, his first season in Blacksburg, to 20-15 the next year. Virginia Tech’s leap from 2-16 in the ACC during his first season to 10-8 a year later equaled the largest single-season turnaround in conference history.
The Terps opened on Monday night against visiting Bucknell, winning 96-67. Last season, they finished 12-21 and 4-16 in the Big Ten. Williams has never logged consecutive losing seasons since his first job as a head coach at New Orleans in 2007.
“I just think there’s multiple reasons for success,” Williams told Hoops HQ. “There’s also multiple reasons for lack of, and so I hope some of what happens in year number two is reflective of (previous improvements), but specifically Virginia Tech, where it’s a completely different team. We play a completely different style on both ends (this season). Maybe there’s 10 percent of what we’re doing tactically that’s the same as last year.”
Williams has managed, however, to maintain relative continuity in roster composition during the era of the transfer portal. Five players from last season are back, including four who started at least one game. That’s a far cry from Williams’s first season when 15 players were in their first year at Maryland.
At the top of the list of returning players is center Pharrel Payne, who received a medical waiver from the NCAA for a fifth season. The 6-foot-9 redshirt senior was the Terps’ most dependable player at both ends of the floor before a leg injury limited the Texas A&M transfer to 10 games.
Payne was the first player to commit to Maryland after Williams left Texas A&M for the Terps.
Also back for another season are Andre Mills and George Turkson Jr., both transfers from Texas A&M. Last season Mills matched Maryland’s freshman record for points in a game, scoring 39 against Northwestern.
“Can you get four to come back every year? You can’t answer that question,” Williams said. “But I do think we have evidence prior to Maryland that we want to choose the right players as often as possible, that have multiple years, returning. I think there was a level of continuity at our program at Texas A&M. I think over time we realized that those human beings/players develop within what we do.”
The anticipation for a dramatic about-face this season also stems from the highest rated recruiting class Willams has assembled. The centerpiece is Baba Oladotun, a 6-foot-10 forward rated the No. 1 player nationally in the Class of 2027, per ESPN, before reclassifying to 2026. The consensus five-star is a native of Silver Spring, Md., a short drive from Maryland’s campus.
Oladotun’s arrival is reminiscent of that of Derik Queen, whose freshman season in 2024-25 included a buzzer-beating jumper to send the Terps to the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since 2016.
Kaden House is another current freshman who has played extensively during the preseason, in large part because of devotion to defense. The four-star 6-foot-3 guard was selected Nike Elite Youth Basketball League Defensive Player of the Year last season. He was rated the No. 25 prospect by Rivals and is the son of former NBA player Eddie House.
Williams’s first recruiting commit entering this season was Austin Brown, who had offers from Iowa, Minnesota and Texas A&M, among other power conference schools. The 6-foot-8 wing’s affinity for Maryland includes having played for Coach John Lucas on the AAU circuit. Lucas is one of the most accomplished players in Maryland history and was the No. 1 overall pick in the 1976 NBA Draft.
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Williams has embraced the rich tradition of Maryland basketball, including spending extensive time with former coach Gary Williams, architect of the Terps’ national championship in 2002. That team is set to be honored throughout this season as part of 25th anniversary celebrations.
Last week during Maryland media day Buzz Williams had his players wear throwback uniforms from 2002 for a team photo at Xfinity Center.
“It’s the foundation that he’s laid,” Terps associate head coach Devin Johnson, who has been on Buzz Williams’ staff for 15 seasons, told Hoops HQ. “Year One is all about setting the foundation, setting the standard, letting everybody in the program and at the university know who he is and how he does things.
“And then Year Two you take that jump because you have players that bought into the foundation and what coach Buzz believes in, or players who’ve already been in it before and absorbed it, and so now you have players coaching it. Everybody’s on the bus, and they’re all going the same way.”
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