Roughly one month after the five-star big man officially arrived in College Park, Maryland freshman Derik Queen now finds himself as a potential first-round pick after ESPN projected the Baltimore native to land in the first round of the 2025 NBA Draft, coming off the board to the Dallas Mavericks with the 24th overall pick. Maryland was one of three Big Ten teams to feature at least one projected first-round pick, while both Rutgers and Illinois had a pair of preseason selections ahead of Queen in "Ace" Bailey (2nd), Dylan Harper (3rd), Kasparas Jakucionis (18th) and William Riley (23rd). Whether Queen stays in College Park for one season or two remains to be seen, but he will have a chance to become the program's first draft pick since Aaron Wiggins went 55th overall to the Oklahoma City Thunder back in 2021, while Queen could become the first first-round pick since fellow Baltimore big man Jalen Smith went tenth overall to the Phoenix Suns back in 2020. Queen has long been viewed as an NBA-caliber prospect, but for him to become a first-round pick after just one season in College Park, that would mean the Terps would be a star-studded tandem anchoring the frontcourt like fans hope. Queen is back alongside his former high school teammate as he and Julian Reese are expected to start at the four and five with a revamped backcourt behind them. “I think it’s gonna be really fun. We complement each other. We can kind of do the same things,” Queen said on a recent show with the program. While first-round projections give a different type of preseason buzz than Maryland fans are used to in years past, head coach Kevin Willard already envisions how the Queen-Reese combo can work out in College Park. "I'm excited about it because they're both great passers. They're both willing passers. I think you're gonna have to guard one of them in the post. If you put your four-man on Derik, we're going to post up Derik. If you put your four-man on JuJu, good luck," Willard said on 105.7. "We'll do a lot of high-low stuff. We'll do some empty-side pick-and-roll things. They won't play together all that much just because big guys get in foul trouble. I think JuJu played way too many minutes last year, I'd like to cut his minutes down by about five or six a game just to keep him fresher for the end of the year. So they'll probably only play about 12 to 13 minutes a game . But when they play those minutes together, we're going to put shooters around them and we're going to pound the ball inside." Related Links
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