Baba Oladotun's pledge delivers Maryland men's basketball first top-three ranked class in two decades

Ahmed Ghafir
2 days ago
2 min read

Blake (MD) wing Baba Oladotun became the third five-star prospect to commit to Maryland men’s basketball in as many recruiting cycles, but his commitment on Wednesday night also gives head coach Buzz Williams a feat that the program hasn’t accomplished in over two decades.

Five-star Baba Oladotun now becomes the fourth commitment in Maryland’s 2026 class, vaulting the program to the third-highest-ranked recruiting class in the country for the program’s first top-three class since 2003, a class that featured DJ Strawberry, Ekene Ibekwe, Mike Jones and Will Bowers.

While the 2003 class proved to feature several foundational programs during the height of the Gary Williams era, the 2026 class will now look to do the same with local five-star Baba Oladotun serving as Buzz Williams’ first commitment from a DMV-based prospect. Maryland worked to get others like DC guard Ant Brown and Virginia big Latrell Allmond, but none were bigger than Oladotun with the wing addition and four-star Adama Tambedou stepping into bigger roles in year one.

Maryland kicked off the cycle by dipping back into familiar territory, quickly hosting Lufkin (TX) three-star Austin Brown who grew plenty comfortable with the staff from their days at Texas A&M. Despite other high major interest, Brown shut down his recruitment roughly one week later to become the first pledge, giving the staff a springboard to work from heading into the fall.

In the meantime, Putnam Science four-star forward Adama Tambedou consistently heard from the staff with assistant Wabissa Bede spearheading efforts ahead of his Sept. 4 official visit, positioning the Terps to land him after what proved to be the final visit in his recruitment. Maryland was also in the mix to host several guards, among them being Compass Prep (AZ) four-star Kaden House – son of NBA guard Eddie House- who arrived the same weekend as Oladotun. Nearly six weeks later, House became the second top-50 signing for Buzz Williams - at the time.

Maryland would go the distance for its first top-ten signing of the Buzz Williams era with Oladotun settling on the evening of the final day of the early signing period to announce his decision, ending a near seven-month pursuit by Buzz Williams and his assistant.

“That says something about the man, to get people like that to come in and come with you wherever you go shows your leadership and how much you put people first,” Oladotun’s dad told IBG after the official visit. “Not only that, people that worked with him in the past come join him because they know what to expect. That’s huge. Only Jesus people follow around like that. This guy is amazing. Whatever he’s doing, he puts people first. It’s going to be the love for what he does and the system. Getting people to come with you from the athletic staff to the trainers to the strength person, it’s huge and shows his leadership and how much he loves his people around him. That, for me, that says a lot about Buzz.”

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