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Maryland power forward Pharrel Payne will return to the team for the upcoming 2026-27 season, athletic director Jim Smith told the Big Ten Network on Monday.
The 6-foot-9, 250-pound senior led the Terps in scoring at 17.5 points per game and ranked second in rebounding at 7.2 per game despite playing just 10 games because of a right knee injury.
That ailment sidelined Payne for the final 22 games of the year.
Were going to get Pharrel Payne back, Smith told the Big Ten Network.
He was the linchpin to the team, and when he went down, it was going to be a really hard season, and it was.
So were really excited about the new tools we have coming in, the new players that well have on the court, and were really excited to see what happens this upcoming year.
Payne, who followed coach Buzz Williams from Texas A&M to College Park, received a medical waiver from the NCAA, a team spokesman confirmed.
Paynes return is a boost for a Maryland team that limped to a 12-21 overall record (matching a dubious program mark for most setbacks in a season) and a 5-15 record in the league (earning the No.
17 seed in the 18-team field of the conference tournament).
Paynes presence anchors a frontcourt that includes three new faces in power forwards Tomislav Buljan (New Mexico), Maban Jabriel (Queens) and Robert Jennings II (Oklahoma State).
Buljans size is listed at 6-9 and 250 pounds, Jabriel is 6-9 and 205 pounds and Jennings is 6-7 and 230 pounds.
Those three forwards make up half of a transfer class that includes shooting guards Bishop Boswell (Tennessee) and Michael McNair (Boston University) and point guard DJ Wagner (Arkansas).
That group supplements a freshman class consisting of five-star forward Baba Oladotun, four-star shooting guard Kaden House and four-star power forward Adama Tambedou.
The teams group of newcomers , including both freshmen and transfers, is ranked 12th overall in the nation, according to 247 Sports.
Smith who was announced as Damon Evans successor on May 15, 2025, a month-and-a-half after the university moved swiftly to replace Kevin Willard with Williams said injuries took a toll on Williams ability to coax more wins out of the roster.
It was just a constant obstacle they hit throughout the season that they continued to overcome, he said.
And what you really saw at the end of the year was a team that continued to play really hard, really hard and win some games at the end of the year after going through a lot of adversity through the entire season.
And it tells you a little about the coaching staff that they didnt stop coaching, they didnt stop working, the players didnt stop playing.
And then we went into the offseason and made some pretty significant adjustments to the roster.
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