Andre Mills on transfer to Maryland, following Buzz Williams: "The culture, the coaches, it’s not like anything I’ve ever seen"

Just eight days ago, new Maryland men’s basketball head coach Buzz Williams admitted “the last 32 hours, I've done no recruiting” – but the portal efforts since then say otherwise.

Since Williams’s introductory press conference, Maryland has added six transfer portal commits after George Turkson became the fourth Aggie to go public with his decision on Thursday morning. It was expected that several Aggies were following Williams to College Park with forward Pharrel Payne, ranked the 35th-best prospect in the portal as of Thursday night, the first to announce his transfer decision. Williams may have 40% of his roster filled as of Thursday evening, but with Payne and Turkson joining forward Solomon Washington and guard Andre Mills in College Park, Maryland also has several pieces to instill Buzz’s culture into the program.

For Andre Mills, a former top-150 signee who redshirted in 2024-25, the 6-foot-4 point guard wasn’t immediately sure that Maryland would be his ultimate destination.

“I wasn’t really sure. I wasn’t sure what was going on at first,” Mills told IBG. “I just knew that this staff and group of people, we all love each other and they love me, seeing what they do and guys that went with them fit. We’re all riding together. We knew that regardless, we’d be taken care of.”

That trust in Buzz Williams eventually set the stage for Mills’ transfer to College Park, announcing his decision on Wednesday to become the fifth portal commit and third Aggie to go public with his decision at the time.

“The culture, the coaches, it’s not like anything I’ve ever seen,” Mills told IBG about why he opted to follow Buzz. “The perfect example of the embodiment of hard work. He expects a lot from his players, we train hard and we play hard because that’s what our coach does. He leads by example with that.”

Mills committed to the Aggies over Iowa and Temple as his finalists, but the head coach Buzz Williams and his staff prioritized the Boston standout way before he was an established prospect nationally. Mills then rose in the 2024 class rankings after being named a 2A All-NEPSAC selection as a junior, but despite drawing additional high major interest, the Massachusetts native remembered the longevity of the Aggies’ pursuit led by Buzz Williams and assistant Wabissa Bede.

“It’s just a big thing on loyalty and respect for him because out of high school, I was decorated later in my career, but there was a time and point I wasn’t being recruited by many people and he kind of just stayed with me. He cared [about] who I was as a person,” Mills added.

But Mills also committed to Maryland without stepping foot on campus, but the feedback on College Park and proximity to home were two more chips in Maryland’s favor.

“I did research. I’m from Boston so I’m only like an hour flight. That was the first thing I looked at. The second thing was how far away it is from the city, like is it a safe area? Stuff like that. It’s 30 minutes away from downtown, perfect little area. I haven’t been to campus yet, I’ll be on campus soon but just seeing the area, seeing the housing, I just think it’s a really beautiful area. I’ve had coaches who’ve been there, like high school coaches and they’ve seen the area before.”

With the portal process now over for the quartet of Aggies, now they’ll lead a team in College Park that will find a new identity. By the time Buzz Williams was announced as head coach, all but two players had already announced their intention to leave the program. Two days after the introductory press conference, Derik Queen announced his departure for the 2025 NBA Draft only for Chance Stephens to become the final Willard holdover to enter the transfer portal this week. With that new identity will come a new style of play, but Mills isn’t sure Maryland’s new style will differ from Texas A&M’s style under Buzz.

“I personally don’t think we’re going to change how we’re going to play. I will say, from what I’ve seen watching practice, I think the SEC, the pace is completely different than the Big Ten. The Big Ten, guys are a little bigger, a little slower than an SEC player. I’m not saying that in a bad way, I’m saying the pace of play is completely different. I think – the SEC is like an average of 65 possessions. It’s a lot of guard play in the SEC so I think that essentially bringing his style of play – or our style of play – is going to make things difficult for teams.”

After redshirting in 2024-25, Mills is up to around from “around 200” too 210 pounds “but it’s all muscle now.” But while the newest Terrapin guard pointed to the strides made in the weight room, Mills pointed to his mentality and maturity as reasons why he’s confident heading into his first season playing college basketball.

“We had conversations about this too, how I would’ve been fine mentally but it’s a different level of mental as well. I think I overlooked that and I didn’t understand that every single possession. Like, every single possession. I think now that I’ve seen it and I’ve experienced it and been through it in practice every day and the level of our practices, I think I’m more than prepared now. I can go in and be myself, not worry about anything.”

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