Headed into the 2025-26 season, Maryland men’s basketball is completely unrecognizable from last season.

Former head coach Kevin Willard departed for Villanova and essentially the entire rest of the program followed suit. Lukas Sotell was the only player or coach who remained with the Terps over the offseason. Thus, Maryland enters the season as an entirely new program with new faces littered throughout. 

Thursday’s media day was the first time head coach Buzz Williams and Maryland’s new team met with the press.

“When you’re starting over from scratch, it’s a little different than going into the spring and you need to sign two guys or you need to sign four guys,” Williams said. “It somewhat is depending upon your perspective. Is it harder to sign 15, or is it harder to sign five? And it’s just an ongoing deal.” 

Williams brought over four players from Texas A&M, his previous program, two key seniors and two redshirt freshmen. The rest of the roster have yet to play a game for Maryland’s head coach. 

Williams’ staff includes a plethora of former Texas A&M staff members, but he revealed that it took 10 days for staff members to get hired as Maryland underwent background checks. At the same time, Maryland was rushing to recruit in the transfer portal. The process of Williams and his staff getting to Maryland occurred in the midst of the transfer recruiting cycle. 

“With each passing day, the background check of our staff was unfolding. Some of them were getting hired. Some of them were able to get to the hotel that I was staying in,” Williams said. “There’s so many factors, and you try to handle each ball in the air the right way, respectfully with each family that’s represented within those balls, and do the best that you can.” 

The Terps brought in six outside transfers with no connection to Williams, five of which came from major programs. 

Yet, several transfers had connections to each other. David ‘Diggy’ Coit and Rakease Passmore, who will miss the season with an ACL injury, played together last season at Kansas. Also, Myles Rice and Isaiah Watts overlapped for a season at Washington State. 

Elijah Saunders had no prior connection to Williams or Maryland, yet quickly committed to the program after spending time at San Diego State and Virginia. 

“Growing up, I never knew anything about Maryland, I never knew anything about College Park. I never thought I would be here, but going where coach Buzz [Williams] was going to be, knowing how he is as a person,” Saunders said. “I’ll say, within 48 hours of my first time talking to Buzz [Williams], I committed.”

The Terps also brought in five freshmen, some of whom decommitted from other programs to join what Williams was building in College Park. 

Maryland’s highest touted freshman is former four-star recruit Darius Adams. Adams was previously committed to Connecticut, but was enticed by Williams’ program once he reopened his recruitment. 

“It really wasn’t like Buzz convincing. It was more of like who he is as a person. I mean, we talked on the phone the first day he called me when my recruitment opened back up,” Adams said. “It was more of a conversation of what type of people we are, our families and stuff like that. It wasn’t really about, like, basketball or what he could do with me, how he can use me and stuff like that.”

Adams revealed that Williams’ program was attractive based on values, rather than what was on the court. 

Adams was committed to Dan Hurley for five months, a program that won two of the last three national championships. But, opted for a somewhat unproven commodity in Williams’ new program at Maryland.

“When I came down here to actually spend some time with [Williams] and see how he is, it’s just like he’s different, but like you’re inspired by his difference,” Adams said.

In terms of what is to come for Maryland this season, it is unclear. Williams described that the team hasn’t had many ‘high-major good’ practices and has had more bad days than good days. 

But, he also revealed that the players would probably disagree with his assessment of the 26 practices Maryland has had thus far.

Williams explained that his expectations are to see improvement. He calls his first 20 days of practice his “boot camp” as a method to improve his team. Despite calling it archaic and negatively impacting the team early on, he explained it will help later in the season to build his team’s identity.

“We probably spend the first 20 days that we’re allowed to work with our team, probably in a way that puts us further behind schematically,” Williams said. “We probably lose a game or two before Christmas every year that we shouldn’t, and we probably win a game or two after Valentine’s Day that we shouldn’t and I personally think not, because it’s me.” 

Williams described that early on, the Terps may go through the struggles of being a completely new team. 

Williams has emphasized his team’s identity and the internal focus on the current roster and the future of the program rather than necessarily the opponents on Maryland’s schedule and the rest of the Big Ten.

“We’re probably behind in understanding the Big Tej. It’s a it seems like it’s an eternity until we play, even though I know it’s still going to happen really soon,” Williams said. “We just tried to spend as much time investing in our players, their skill, who they are, what we want to be about on and off the floor.” 

The Terps will hit the floor for the first time on Monday as they host UMBC in an exhibition. It will be the first glimpse of what Maryland’s new program under Williams will look like.