Maryland men's basketball escapes with 82-81 exhibition win vs. UMBC

Chase King
12 hours ago
3 min read

Maryland survived their first test of the year in an 82-81 win against UMBC, thanks to a couple of big-time late shots by the Terps.

The 2025-26 Terps basketball team made its debut in an exhibition game against UMBC. The Terps are coming off a Sweet 16 appearance in last year’s March Madness, but start the season with new coach Buzz Williams and a rebuilt roster.

The first starting lineup of the season included a freshman 4-star Darius Adams, redshirt freshman Andre Mills, freshman Guillermo Del Pino, senior Elijah Saunders and senior Pharrel Payne.

The Terps also entered this game with five injuries and three of which were potential starters: redshirt junior Myles Rice, junior Isaiah Watts, and senior Solomon Washington.

Payne ended the 2024-25 season strong, scoring 25.5 ppg in his two appearances in March Madness for Texas A&M. He followed Williams to Maryland in this offseason.

He would continue his hot stretch in this one, scoring six of the Terps' eight points on their way to an 8-0 start. Adams would add the other two from the free-throw line.

Payne would end the game with 26 points and 9 rebounds.

“We probably need to play him nine minutes and four seconds longer than we did,” William said about Payne after the game. Payne was in the game for 30:56.

The Terps would start aggressively on offense, with most of the offense running through the paint. Early in the game, it looked like the offense mainly ran through paint touches to Payne. He would end the first half with 15 points on 6-9 shooting from the field.

A pair of Maryland guards, Andre Mills and Adams, would add some productivity to the offense in the rest of the second half.

Adams finished the game playing all 40 minutes of the game. He ended with 19 points and shot 11-13 from the free throw line.

On his ability to get fouls, Adams said, “I'm always that aggressive.”

The Terps in total had 38 free-throw attempts, and Williams said, “From a statistical standpoint, 30 of our points came from the free-throw line. I know that’s kind of an outlier, but that’s one thing that we’re going to lean into more often.”

Williams also said that this team will need to be fouled at a high rate going forward.

After Maryland's 8-0 start UMBC would work back to even it with less than four minutes left in the first half at 29-29.

UMBC’s Paul Greene and DJ Armstrong were key contributors for the Retrievers in the first half. Greene attacked the rim against the Terps and ended the half with 10 points, while DJ Armstrong had two threes and three assists in the first half.

The Terps led after the half, 36-34. A big reason for that was UMBC finishing the first half shooting 4-8 from the three-point line compared to Maryland’s 1-6.

Maryland would go on to shoot 5-15 from behind the arc, with three of those shots coming in pivotal moments in the final five minutes.

The Terps once again had a good start to the half, taking a quick eight-point lead in the first five minutes of the second half, but UMBC would not go away.

Maryland and UMBC went a while trading blows. On the Terps' side, Elijah Saunders stepped up beside Payne, scoring 11 points in the second half.

UMBC saw Devin Caesar and Caden Diggs step up in the second half with 10 points from both of them. The Retrievers would also make six threes in the second half.

The score would stay within three points until UMBC hit a pair of three pointers, which put them up six with six minutes left.

A big reason that the Terps stayed so close with UMBC was the lack of runs. The biggest run for the Terps was their 8-0 run to start the game. Some of that has to do with turnovers, which the Terps finished with 17 turnovers.

“The two times we have competed against another team, our turnover rate has been too high,” Williams said in reference to the secret scrimmage against WVU and tonight's exhibition against UMBC.

The Terps would storm back with big-time threes from Adams, Saunders, and Guillermo Del Pino, which helped bring them within two points. George Turkson Jr. would hit the go-ahead three with just 50 seconds left.

Maryland would get two stops and make a couple of free throws before UMBC made a last-second shot to bring the score to one.

The Terps have their first regular-season game on November 3rd in Baltimore’s CFG Bank Arena vs Coppin St.

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