Maryland men’s basketball drew 34 points in the first AP poll of the college basketball season, unofficially checking in at 30th nationally.
Purdue (3), Michigan State (4) and Illinois (25) were the lone Big Ten teams ranked, while Wisconsin unofficially ranks 26th after leading the “other receiving votes” group. Indiana was the third Big Ten team to draw votes, as well.
Maryland will kick off the regular season against Mount St. Mary’s before heading to the Asheville Championship where they’ll face Davidson then either UAB or Clemson. After that, the Terps will head to Philly to face former Maryland forward Hakim Hart and Villanova, who checked in at 22nd in the AP rankings.
Maryland’s final road game of nonconference play will be the second matchup in a home-and-home against UCLA, who unofficially checked in at 28th in the AP Poll.
Maryland also checked in at 22nd in the debut of the KenPom rankings for the 2023-24 season, the fifth-highest Big Ten team behind Purdue (1) Michigan State (13), Illinois (19) and Wisconsin (20), while being named inside the top 25 by a pair of media outlets last week.
The news comes two days removed from Maryland’s first “secret” scrimmage of the preseason, defeating Cincinnati 74-70 on Saturday as Jahmir Young finished with a game-high 23 points, Julian Reese tallied 18 points and seven rebounds while Donta Scott added 11 points.
Willard glowed at the podium during Big Ten media day last week as he reviewed his “best freshman class I’ve ever had” as Maryland will lean on a pair of impact freshmen in DeShawn Harris-Smith and Jamie Kaiser Jr. to give the offense complimentary scoring options.
“DeShawn Harris-Smith is by far the most talented player, probably the most physically gifted basketball player I’ve ever been able to coach so far. Jamie Kaiser [Jr.] was a former quarterback and played football. They’ve been able to come in with Jordan, and really kind of embrace how we want to play, the level we want to play at.”
With Patrick Emilien exhausting his eligibility, Willard admitted the Terps needed “to change our athleticism” to retool the roster. That led Willard to turn to someone he was plenty familiar with in the portal as Indiana transfer Jordan Geronimo gives the Terps an experienced rotational piece in the frontcourt.
“He was one of those guys that just was going to be a game changer for us. And Jordan so far is, I mean, our practices, we haven’t practiced longer than an hour and 26 minutes because our practices are so athletic and so physical,” Willard said last week. “I have a lineup with Donta Scott, Jordan Geronimo, Julian [Reese], and Mady Traore. I mean we are big and physical and Jordan’s changed the way we play. He’s that good of a player. He’s shooting the basketball great. He’s skilled. More than anything, he’s just changed our roster just by adding him.”
With Jahmir Young, Donta Scott and Julian Reese leading the way, Maryland was picked to finish third in the annual preseason Big Ten media poll with Jahmir Young drawing first-team honors as the makeup of Willard’s roster adds confidence heading into year two.
“Like I said, practice has been unbelievable. We’ve just, we can’t go that long cause they’re so competitive, they’re so physical. We look like a Big Ten team where last year, we had to really fight to be a Big Ten team. This year we look like a Big Ten team and I think we can compete a little bit higher level because of that.”
Maryland’s team media day is set for Tuesday, Oct. 17, before the Nov. 7 season-opener vs. Mount St. Mary’s.
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