Maryland men's basketball gets good health news ahead of season opener vs. Coppin St.

Ahmed Ghafir
4 days ago
2 min read

The injury bug hasn’t been kind to Maryland men’s basketball leading up to the season opener, but they got good news on Monday in the first availability report of the 2025-26 season.

Veteran guards David ‘Diggy’ Coit and Isaiah Watts are both available for tonight’s season opener versus Coppin State, reported by Jon Rothstein. Maryland won’t have a pair of starters with Myles Rice, spotted without his boot on after suffering an injury last week, and Solomon Washington inactive on Monday night. Coit, Watts and Myles Rice were all spotted during pictures of Maryland’s pregame practice on Monday, while senior forward Solomon Washington could be out another week as he recovers from an ankle injury suffered last month.

Coit and Watts, now available to play almost exactly six months after the program announced their signings, are expected to play integral roles for Maryland with both veteran guards a possibility for Maryland to find outside scoring with both shooting around 36% from deep through their careers. Both will likely find themselves in the starting lineup on Monday with Elijah Saunders, Pharrel Payne and Darius Adams looking to prove themselves as impact pieces.

Williams admitted having just eight players available for practice in late October was “really difficult” with 15 new players.

“A lot of the guys on our staff spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out how we can accumulate positive reps on both sides of the ball, similar to what he was asking, like, who's going to play? I don't know. Well, how long has it been since you played 5-on-5? Long time. Well, doesn't that alter everything? Of course. But again, we're still going to play on Monday, and we're still going to play on Friday, and we're still going to practice and we need all of our energy going to those that can,” Williams said last week.

“And particularly like, I think the last time I talked to you guys, there were seven guys that played 199 minutes and five of those seven had never been in a college pregame locker room. Okay, well that's a lot. And so how are you going to guard our ball screen? How are you going to guard a down screen? What are you doing in transition? What's your favorite out-of-bounds plays like all of those things. And some of those guys are somewhat, quote, playing out of position just because of the situation with the roster. But again, those reps that they're getting in practice and in the games, long-term, I think that bodes well for their growth.”

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