The University of Maryland paid tribute to all of its departing seniors as the men’s basketball team took on Illinois State on Sunday. Diggy Coit, Collin Metcalf, Elijah Saunders and Solomon Washington walked onto the court with their families and several loved ones and received framed jerseys and pictures of themselves to commemorate the end of their run in College Park.
Even though their careers at Maryland were over, it felt like they all had just arrived here. Well, everyone just arrived here. All of the honorees in this year’s senior crop were first-year Terps. A day spent in College Park should add up to the same amount as a standard college experience yesterday.
“Yeah, it wasn’t your typical senior year,” said Maryland booster Jack Cullen, who said he “can count on two hands” how many Terps home games he’s missed since his undergraduate days in the late 1970s.
Cullen said he always shows up early on Senior Day to say a final goodbye to young people in other classes whose names and faces have become familiar to him as he has participated in the program. He kept his routine even on Sundays. But this year’s event didn’t feel as daunting as past awards ceremonies.
“I mean, it was nice to see them walk away,” he said. “And I love these people. Thank you for being here. But the crowd wasn’t big or noisy. It was quiet. I wonder how they felt about (the event). ‘Man, I’m basking in the glory! And I’ve only been here a year.’ It’s the same thing.”
What happened in Maryland this weekend is hurtful to people of a certain age, but it’s not that extreme. The transfer portal opened for DI basketball in the fall of 2018. And change has come quickly and completely, like when Ireland banned smoking in pubs. CBS Sports college basketball writer Isaac Trotter reported last week that this season there were only 22 scholarship players from so-called “mega” NCAA programs (meaning the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC or Big East) who played at the same school all four years. And Mississippi State’s Shawn Jones Jr. is the only SEC senior to use up all of his eligibility at one school.
Senior Day is an unexpected casualty of the new normal.
“I loved having them around long enough for them to get to know you, connect with the fans and have relationships with their teammates,” said Terps play-by-play man and D.C. institution Johnny Holliday. “By my count, I was in my 47th Senior Day game.” “These four people ‘graduated’ yesterday and have never played with anyone else.”
Holliday is another kind of Maryland senior. He has been calling Terps football and basketball games since 1979. Also, one quick thing to point out is that Holliday has seen a lot. He roomed with Larry Brown and Rick Barry in a high-rise D.C. apartment building in 1969, where the ABA’s Washington Caps played. He hosted the Washington Senators’ pregame show with Ted Williams during the 1970 and 1971 seasons. He hosted the Beatles’ final show in San Francisco in August 1966. He was inducted into the Radio-Television Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2003. He says he’s old-fashioned, but he’s okay with performers getting paid. And he now sees true free-agent players enjoying themselves as an equal and opposite reaction to the crazy rules the NCAA put in place to take all the money out of the hands of those who actually generate all the commerce.
He recalled in harrowing tones a time during his time at Maryland when he asked former Terps great coach and now American University head coach Duane Simpkins to speak to students at a local parochial school. Maryland cleared Simpkins, but there were a lot of NCAA strings attached. “Duane had to drive himself to do that. I couldn’t drive him to school,” Holliday said. “And later on, we couldn’t take him out to eat. Even with all the restrictions, he still came out and hypnotized the kids. But it was all nonsense. And I remember the time someone got Rudy Archer to class and Maryland got nailed!”
But he admits he’s already missing last year’s graduation ceremony. That’s when Julian “JuJu” Reese, who has unlimited college basketball options but is stuck at Maryland, walked out on the floor to end his four-year playing career. Reese stayed on even when Mark Turgeon, the coach who recruited him to Maryland, left College Park. And the fans rewarded him with a tumultuous exit.
“It was fine for JuJu, right?” Holiday said. “He could have gone anywhere. But he didn’t and now he’s in the league! But I’m afraid we’ll never see another one like him.” (Reese made his NBA debut last week, posting an 18-point, 20-rebound double-double against Utah a few days later.)
Reese played 134 games in a Maryland uniform. That’s 20 more times than all four members of the Senior Day Class of 2026 combined.
Cullen knows the gloom inside the home stadium on Senior Day isn’t just due to the crowd’s relative unfamiliarity with the departing players. Terps fans haven’t had much to celebrate all season. Sunday’s 78-72 loss to the Fighting Illini left their record at 11-20, the fewest wins of any Big Ten team. There will be no March Madness appearance unless a miracle occurs in the conference tournament, which begins today with a game against Oregon in Chicago.
But Cullen rarely abandons the team he has loved the most. He’s already looking forward to next year and knows what he needs to do to get it right. Even if it means cutting back on graduation days for other schools.
“We really need to do some work on the portal,” he said.
correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified Kevin Willard as the Maryland coach who originally recruited JuJu Reese and then ran away. It was Mark Turgeon.
