Where Maryland stands with its 2021 recruiting class
With Serrel Smith transferring, Maryland now has four scholarships available in the 2021 class. Here’s a position-by-position look at where things stand in relation to those open spots with the NCAA extending the recruiting dead period through July.
Point Guards
No. 73 Carter Whitt (Leesville Road/Raleigh, NC)
No. 77 Tyty Washington (Compass Prep/Laveen, AZ)
Maryland explored Whitt and Washington as reclass options last summer, but Whitt opted to stay in the 2021 class and Washington’s recruitment slowed down before he made the decision to spend another year in high school. The staff is no longer prioritizing the position with incoming freshman point guard Anquan Smart in the fold.
Combo Guards/Shooting Guards
No. 17 Trevor Keels (Paul VI/Fairfax, VA)
No. 28 Jalen Warley (Westtown School/Norristown, PA)
No. 59 Jordan Longino (Germantown Academy/Fort Washington, PA)
No. 120 Wesley Cardet (Northeast/Fort Lauderdale, FL)
No. 146 D’Marco Dunn (Westover/Tuscon, AZ)
UR Nisine Poplar (Math Civics and Sciences/Philadelphia, PA)
-Warley, Longino and Poplar are all from the Philadelphia area, where Maryland has some momentum after landing Donta Scott and Hakim Hart in the 2019 class. The Terps have a shot with all three of them, but there’s other schools that are heavily in the mix as well and it’s hard to say they’re in the driver’s seat for any of them at the moment.
-It’ll be interesting to see how many schools make the cut for Warley when he trims his list on June 7. Terps assistant Matt Brady coached his uncle in college, but Brady was working under Michigan assistant Phil Martelli at the time, and the Wolverines currently have the most buzz in Warley’s recruitment. (Martelli also recruited Warley’s dad to Saint Joseph’s.)
-Longino comes from the same Philly Pride AAU program as Scott and Hart and is high on the Terps, who became the latest school to offer last month. There’s stiff competition, though, including hometown Villanova and Virginia, which could point to the success another Philly Pride alum, DeAndre Hunter, had in Charlottesville to land the top-60 shooting guard.
-Poplar is less heralded than Warley and Longino and his recruitment is still taking shape. He holds offers from Seton Hall, Virginia Tech, VCU, Auburn, Wichita State, St. John’s, Miami, Penn State, DePaul, Marquette, Georgia and Georgetown.
-Dunn, who moved from Arizona to North Carolina last year, is in a similar stage in his recruitment as Poplar, but he just picked up an offer from the Tar Heels which could be hard to contend with if Roy Williams and staff make him a priority. Texas, Xavier, Clemson, Marquette, Vanderbilt and Wichita State are also in the mix.
-Keels is a local product who has never seriously considered Maryland, while Cardet is a nice option down the road because he doesn’t plan to sign until the spring. The Terps were the first school to offer the Floridian after he fully recovered from a knee injury that plagued him for more than a year earlier this month.
“The first [offer] was Maryland. Maryland has been in contact with me and Wes for the past like two weeks just to see would Maryland be an interesting spot for him,” Cardet’s high school coach Zach Gillion told http://SourceHoops.com on May 8. “I told them that Maryland is a prestigious basketball school. Definitely, definitely. And also I have a brother that stays in Maryland. They called, we got on a Zoom call with the head coach and they offered him.”
This is an important position to fill for Maryland because even if Smart and Marcus Dockery find success at the next level, there’s still a need for another ball handling guard with Smith transferring and Eric Ayala and Aaron Wiggins entering their junior seasons.
Big Guards/Wings
No. 14 Aminu Mohammed (Greenwood Laboratory School/Washington, DC)
No. 15 Kendall Brown (Sunshine Christian/Saint Paul, MN)
No. 18 Peyton Watson (Long Beach Poly/Long Beach, CA)
No. 27 Matthew Cleveland (Pace Academy/Alpharetta, GA)
No. 78 Ike Cornish (Legacy Charter/Cockeysville, MD)
UR Isaiah Barnes (River Forest/Oak Park, IL)
UR Josh Minott (St. Andrew's School/Boca Raton, FL)
UR David Jones (Teays Valley Christian School/Scott Depot, WV)
-There’s a lot of names here, but the two most relevant are probably Mohammed and Cornish, who both began their high school basketball careers locally before transferring out of state. The Terps have put as much time in with Mohammed than any other player on this list, while it didn’t take much time for them to jump into the forefront of Cornish’s recruitment after offering him in April. While Mohammed is still working with a long list of suitors, Cornish recently cut his list to six and set an August 21 commitment date. Among 2021 recruits, he appears to be the best bet to land at Maryland.
-Brown, Watson and Cleveland are all top-30 recruits with national recruitments and a ton of suitors from around the country. None of them appear to be in any hurry to make a decision either. Cleveland and Brown each included the Terps in their most recent cuts but are still considering double digit schools, while there hasn’t been much activity in Watson’s recruitment.
-The Terps got involved with Barnes after landing Smart, a fellow Chicagoan who played against him in high school and reached out to him soon after he was offered in March. There’s some interest here, but the Windy City is a tough place to recruit for a staff without any direct ties to the area and Barnes is a more heralded recruit at this stage than Smart was. Kansas, Illinois, TCU, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Creighton, Gonzaga and Iowa State are all involved.
-Jones and Minott each entered 2020 without any Power Conference offers and they’re still in the stage of fielding interest with multiple schools entering the mix with offers this month. Jones is interesting as he’s from West Virginia, saw the Terps cut down the cuts in the season finale against Michigan and has interest from Kentucky. Maryland, Oklahoma, Baylor, Texas, Florida State and Dayton are the main players for Minott.
-A lot of these players could be recruited as either combo guards or forwards as well, but this spot becomes a bigger priority if Hart fails to take the next step next season and/or Wiggins turns pro with one year of eligibility remaining. Either way, the Terps should add at least one player who can play the small forward in this class, if not two, not including commit Julian Reese who projects as a combo forward and could play the three down the line.
Combo Forwards
No. 35 Trey Patterson (Rutgers Prep/Somerset, NJ)
No. 48 Benny Williams (St. Andrew's Episcopal/Potomac, MD)
No. 145 Eric Van Der Heijden (Millbrook/Raleigh, NC)
UR James Graham (Nicolet/Milwaukee, WI)
-Even with Reese in the fold, the Terps are still in pursuit of a handful of players with similar skillsets as you can never have too many big and skilled forwards. If there was any doubt about that, Maryland offered van der Heijden four days after Reesee committed on May 10. They’ve also become serious players with Graham after becoming the first of double digit high-major schools to offer him this month.
-Graham might be the most interesting name in this group. He is currently unranked by recruiting services, but has all the ingredients of a serious sleeper: he’s still only 16, has grown six inches since entering high school, has long arms (7-foot-2 wingspan) and shot 43 percent from three last year. Michigan State jumped into the mix this week, though, and the Spartans could emerge as the team to beat. He has raved about Tom Izzo in recent interviews and that could ultimately lift Michigan State above Maryland. The 6-foot-8 forward wants to cut his list down to six or seven schools soon and make a decision before the start of his senior year, and the Terps should survive the cut.
-Williams has Maryland in his top-4 along with Syracuse, Miami and Georgetown and is one of the longest standing targets in the class. The Terps have been at or near the top of Williams list throughout his recruitment and they’ve done a good job keeping the local recruits they want at home, but the Orange are right up there as well with assistant Adrian Autry’s local ties helping their cause. This battle could come down to the wire.
-Patterson is the highest-ranked player and is also the biggest longshot in this group although he shouldn't be ruled out completely. He released a top-10 that includes Maryland, Rutgers, Villanova, Florida, Indiana, Memphis, Arkansas, Tennessee, Auburn and Connecticut last week.
Big Men
No. 2 Chet Holmgren (Minnehaha Academy/Minneapolis, MN)
No. 9 Michael Foster (Hillcrest Prep/Milwaukee, WI)
No. 10 Moussa Diabate (IMG Academy/Arcadia, FL)
No. 22 Charles Bediako (Andrews Osborne Academy/St. Catharines, ON)
No. 24 Franck Kepnang (Westtown School/Granby, MA)
-The Terps will need to add at least one big man in the class, but as has been the case in previous years, there hasn’t been a lot of action with 2021 frontcourt options up to this point outside of pie-in-the-sky five-star targets. Foster and Diabate are safe to write off, and while they’ve stayed in contact with Holmgren, he too appears to be a serious longshot. Kepnang is a recent offer who they’ve talked to about joining the team this year, while Bediako is another potential (but unlikely) reclass who has been on the Terps radar for a while and recently conducted a virtual visit with them. A lot of recent Maryland centers like Bruno Fernando, Chol Marial, Schneider Herald, Joshua Tomaic, Galin Smith and Sean Obi have either committed after abbreviated recruitments or came via transfer so more names will almost certainly surface down the road.
*rankings according to 247Sports Composite
