COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) — Buzz Williams' first season at Maryland is producing the wrong kind of history.
The low point came last weekend, when Purdue came to College Park on a three-game losing streak and left feeling good about itself again, having clobbered the Terrapins 93-63. That was Maryland's most lopsided home loss since it began playing at Xfinity Center in 2002. It was also a slight improvement on the Terps' previous outing, a 91-48 defeat at Michigan State that was the program's most lopsided loss anywhere since 1944.
“We were not competitive from start to finish at Michigan State, in my opinion, on either side of the ball," Williams said after the Purdue game. "I felt that way more after Michigan State, from start to finish, than I had any other game that we had played.”
At this point, Maryland fans can be forgiven if the losses start blending together. The question now, heading into Thursday night's game against Ohio State, is whether there's reason to feel hopeful about the future after this 2025-26 season has been such a dud so far.
“We’re calling this month Foundational February," redshirt freshman Andre Mills said. "We’re just sticking to the foundation, getting back to the way we want to play and how hard we want to play every possession.”
In many ways, that's what Maryland has been lacking for a while — a foundation for consistent success. This program won a national title under Gary Williams in 2002, but it lacked NCAA Tournament success under Mark Turgeon, and after his tenure ran its course, Kevin Willard took over in 2022.
Since then, the Terps have gone through some wild swings, even by the standard of today's transfer-heavy sport. Willard took Maryland to the NCAA Tournament in his first season, then fell to 16-17, then brought the 2024-25 Terrapins to the Sweet 16, the first time they'd been that far since 2016.
Even then, Willard seemed unhappy with the program, and it wasn't a huge surprise when he quickly left for the Villanova job. In Buzz Williams, Maryland hired an experienced coach who had reached 21 wins for four straight seasons at Texas A&M, but with an almost completely new roster, the Terps have plunged to shocking depths.
In addition to the losses to Purdue and Michigan State, Maryland (8-13, 1-9 Big Ten) also lost by 39 to Gonzaga and by 33 to Alabama in back-to-back November games. So Williams' Terps already have four defeats by at least 30 points, the same number they had over the previous 20 seasons.
No wonder Williams is developing a quick trigger when trying to stop runs.
“I'm just trying to call timeouts as fast as I can," he said.
On Sunday, that meant calling one when Purdue took a 10-2 lead after about four minutes. After a while, the score seemed almost immaterial. Williams kept coaching until the very end, even taking a late timeout with the score 90-63 and the outcome long decided.
It's not that Maryland has no talent. Diggy Coit, a transfer from Kansas, has surpassed 40 points twice. But he's already a graduate student. Leading scorer Pharrel Payne, a senior, hasn't played since injuring a leg in mid-December.
The Terps can take solace in next season's recruiting class, which is ranked No. 4 nationally by 247 Sports and includes local five-star Baba Oladotun. And at both Virginia Tech and Texas A&M, Williams struggled at the outset before things improved significantly.
But this is increasingly looking like a lost season, with the focus turning to development now that wins have become so scarce.
“I think that we're not really focused on the outcome. We're focused on us getting better every single day," freshman Darius Adams said. "That's going to make the outcome different. Obviously there's frustration, just because we're losing.”
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Maryland coach Buzz Williams watches during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026, in East Lansing, Mich. (AP Photo/Al Goldis)
