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Maryland basketball: 2019-20 season review and 2020-2021 early preview

By Cody Williams

PISCATAWAY, NJ - MARCH 03: Anthony Cowan Jr. #1 of the Maryland Terrapins celebrates during the game against the Rutgers Scarlet Knights at Rutgers Athletic Center on March 3, 2020 in Piscataway, New Jersey. (Photo by G Fiume/Maryland Terrapins/Getty Images)
PISCATAWAY, NJ - MARCH 03: Anthony Cowan Jr. #1 of the Maryland Terrapins celebrates during the game against the Rutgers Scarlet Knights at Rutgers Athletic Center on March 3, 2020 in Piscataway, New Jersey. (Photo by G Fiume/Maryland Terrapins/Getty Images) /
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(Photo by G Fiume/Maryland Terrapins/Getty Images) /

Early 2020-21 season preview

Cowan Jr. is going to have his jersey hanging in the rafters in College Park sooner rather than later. Ending his career with Maryland basketball as co-champions in the Big Ten is the right way for him to go out. But Cowan graduating now leaves a big hole that the Terrapins must try and fill as they look to the 2020-21 season.

Exacerbating the loss of Cowan to graduation is the looming decision for Jalen Smith. The big forward proved to be one of the breakout stars in the Big Ten this past season and, though he’s not a projected lottery pick by any means right now, he has an obvious NBA future and could leave for the draft after this past season.

The good news for Turgeon and Maryland is they’ll return Wiggins, Morsell, Eric Ayala and Donta Scott from this past year’s team for sure, all of whom will be valuable cogs to keeping this team afloat moving forward.

Unfortunately, there aren’t a ton of high-level recruits coming to College Park for the 2020-21 season as they have no recruits in the top 200 over the 247 Sports Composite rankings, though they could add 6-foot-4 combo guard Karim Mane.

What will make or break Maryland in the 2020-21 season, however, is the transfer market. They are among the favorites to land two big-time Ivy League transfers in Jordan Bruner (Yale) and Bryce Aiken (Harvard), along with Carlik Jones (Radford). If the Terps can add any of those three or multiple, they could very well be in the top third of the Big Ten next season. If they miss out, however, it could be a long fall from a co-conference title.

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