Terps get commitment from Florida guard

The Maryland men’s basketball team continued its spring cleaning Wednesday, this time with an addition. Two weeks after Mark Turgeon announced the departure of sophomore forward Justin Jackson and redshirt junior guard Dion Wiley, the team’s seventh-year coach announced that combo guard Serrel Smith was joining a 2018 recruiting class ranked No. 7 nationally. “Serrel is a natural scorer,” Turgeon said in a statement. “He has great length, terrific quickness and is a really strong defender. He’s a high-character young man who will fit in nicely with the rest of our new recruiting class and our team.” In the same statement, Smith said: “I’m really excited about the opportunity to attend and play at the University of Maryland. Coach Turgeon is a great coach; he was a point guard in college, I can learn a lot from him and he can help me develop my game.” The 6-foot-4, 170-pound Smith, who averaged 29.3 points per game at St. Petersburg (Fla.) High, will give more depth to a backcourt that is expected to return three starters — rising juniors Anthony Cowan Jr. and Kevin Huerter, as well as rising sophomore Darryl Morsell (Mount Saint Joseph). Smith is the 13th-best combo guard and 178th-best overall player in the Class of 2018, according to the 247sports Composite rankings. Smith, who was rated a four-star prospect by ESPN and a three-star prospect in a composite of recruiting services compiled by 247sports, had originally committed to Ole Miss but decommitted after the Rebels made a coaching change. He took an official visit to College Park last weekend. With the addition of Smith to a recruiting class that already includes McDonald’s All-American five-star forward Jalen Smith (Mount Saint Joseph), as well as fourstar wing Aaron Wiggins and four-star combo guard Eric Ayala, the Terps moved up in the 247sports team rankings.